One summer morning in 2011 while drinking our coffee, we noted the difference in the woods due to the drought. We pondered how many oak trees would ultimately die due to the drought and how many we would cut down to prevent a hazard. How were we going to dispose of such large quantities of wood? We already had more firewood than we needed and chopping all of the dead trees into firewood, even with a hydraulic splitter, was more work than we wanted to contemplate. Ronnie starting talking about buying a portable sawmill and making the trees into lumber. At some point he mentioned that a friend of his knew of a mill in Huntsville next door to a facility that makes hardwood flooring.
From there we had a eureka! moment. Was it possible to harvest the dead water
oak, have the mill cut the logs into lumber, dry the lumber in the mill’s kiln,
and then take the lumber to the hardwood floor plant to make hardwood flooring for the future
Dogwood ranch house? We began to get
excited at the prospect of turning a tragic situation caused by the drought
into something positive. We would not
have to waste all of those trees! Flooring
made from wood from the property would be unique and enjoyed for many years in
the ranch house.
After hours of research, the plan was official. We took an inventory of the dead trees,
classified them by type (water oak, red oak, American elm and cedar elm),
measured the trunk circumference and estimated the number of eight-foot trunk lengths
we thought we get out of each dead tree.
We marked them with an orange ribbon and spray paint. Our survey only included trees that were easy
to get to and not those deep in the woods.
We ran calculations of how many board-feet the trees would yield and how
many board-feet we need for hardwood flooring in the house.
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| Evan helping Ronnie paint the ends of logs |
Water oak, a type of red oak, is commonly
used for hardwood floors. We took the dead trees down, cut the trunks into 10, 8 or 6 foot lengths and sealed
the ends with a protective paint.
For dead trees near infrastructure, we hired professionals (“tree monkeys”
as they all themselves) from Rodger’s Tree Service in Brenham. As expected, Roger’s team did an efficient
and professional job at a reasonable price.
To haul the logs to the mill, we hooked-up with Frank Belt
from Huntsville who was doing construction work in Brenham. Frank was driving a large flat-bed trailer
back and forth between Huntsville and Brenham every day so we hired him to
pick-up the logs at Dogwood and drop them off at M&G Sawmill. http://www.mgsawmill.com/
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| Ronnie loading logs onto Frank's trailer |
Unfortunately, the guys at the mill say some of the wood
is not suitable for flooring because the logs are too soft in the middle, a
common problem with large water oak. They will cut as much lumber as possible and
dry it in their kiln for several weeks. That’s
where the wood is now. We hope to get at
least enough flooring for the living room.
We also have logs from two red oak trees we plan to use
for lumber to build the front door for the house. Those logs will be included in the second
batch we take to the mill. |
| Logs ready for Frank to Haul to M&G Sawmill in Huntsville, Texas |
