Mule Days

Today our family attended the 9th Annual Mule Day event held near our home town. Being fascinated by the pioneer life style this was a special treat for me. Well not only for me, but for the whole family. It is amazing to see how my great grandparents would have farmed. I thought I might share a few photos from today.

Planters and Plows
Bottom Plow
Disc Harrow

Bottom Plowing

Our Wood-Mizer

Monday we picked up our Wood-Mizer LT15. The whole family was excited to be getting a sawmill.

Cody checking it out.
Cora keeping me company as I put it together.
Me and Cody starting it up for the first time.
Making my first cut.

A few words about Wood-Mizer:

I have been blown away with this company. I have wanted a Wood-Mizer for sometime and knew the company had a very good reputation both for their sawmills and customer service, but I had no idea they were this good. The mill is way better than I had hoped for, it is top notch and then some. They take no short cuts in the design or the construction.

Nathan and the crew at Wood-Mizer South went over and beyond to serve us. With mills ranging in price from $4,000 to $46,000 I would have thought we would have been treated like small potatoes. But they treated us as if we had spent the big money. When we left with our mill I felt as if we were now a part of the family. Wood-Mizer is an A++++ company!

Wood-Mizer

Last Saturday Wood-Mizer had an open house event at their Wood-Mizer South location in Newnan GA. We made the 2 hour drive to see the demos of the mills. I have been contemplating weather or not to buy a mill or have someone come and custom saw all the trees we have been cutting.

I have wanted a Wood-Mizer for about 10 years but could never see the need to make that kind of investment into something that I would only use on occasion. Building a house is a good occasion. :)

My intention was to go to Wood-Mizer to see the demo on the LT15 and make up my mind as to weather I was going to buy a USED Wood-Mizer or settle for one of its cheaper rivals. I emphasized the word used because I never buy anything new like cars, trucks and the like. I have learned that lesson the hard way. I don't like eating the depreciation. I would rather someone else take the butt kicking on the depreciation. That way I can buy something used and turn around and sell it (if I have to) for close to what I paid for it.

Little did I know what kind of deal we were going to get there. For starters Wood-Mizer has the LT15 discounted almost $500 and for the open house they would include a free box of bands (blades) with the purchase of a mill, a $300 value. To make things better they had drawings for door prizes. Most of the prizes were hats and stuff, but the grand prize was $500 towards options with the purchase of a mill. Well guess who's name they drew for the $500? MY WIFE!!! To make a long story short we bought a NEW Wood-Mizer LT15 and saved almost $1300.00 Woo-Hoo!!! They will have it ready for us to pick up Monday if I don't have to work. More about the mill when we get it home. Here is a video of the LT15.


The LT15 demo mill
Our Mill

Spring Is Here

I just wanted to share some spring colors with you. The first two pictures are a before and after shot of the front yard of the parsonage. Big difference! Most of the people at church didn't know that the dogwoods and azaleas were there.


The parsonage before we cut trees.
Spring after the trees were removed.
These are some azaleas I planted for mama about 20 years ago.
Bumble bees are buzzing. Notice the one in the picture.
Dogwoods
Dew berries will be here soon! :)

Progress With The Trees

We started cutting trees at my mamas house last week. We have two or three trees left to fell after three days of working. We are bringing home a load of logs each day. Most of what we are cutting here will be used as saw logs, some are too small and will be used for railing or furniture later on.

Before we started thinning

After most of the trees have been cut and three loads of logs have been hauled away.
Load #3
Three loads of logs.

Cody helping me stack logs. He is a big help.

Cutting More Trees

We started cutting trees yesterday at my mamas house. Today my Paw Paw was doing some work in the his cow pasture and came by and helped me load some logs. He was a big help with his skid steer.

Before

Paw Paw loading them up.
A load of saw logs. Felling a tree.