The Tree

I've been out of town most of this week, so nothing more has been done to the house since I worked on tearing off the old deck last Saturday. But that doesn't mean I don't have a story to share about the house this week!

Back in March, we had some trees removed. There were a couple of hickory trees in the back yard that had suffered quite a bit of damage over the years. There was also a tall, skinny, crooked cedar tree that looked out of place in the middle of the back yard -- it looked a bit like what I call a "Dr. Seuss tree", if you know what I mean. There was also a big old female ginko tree right next to the house (it's just to the left of the house in blog photo, but you really can't distinguish it from the other trees around). The ginko was actually very beautiful, especially in the Fall when the leaves turned to brilliant yellow. Besides being too close to the house, the real problem with the ginko was the fact that it was the female variety. Now before any ladies in the audience accuse me of being a chauvinist, let me explain. The female variety of the ginko tree produces "fruit", that is, thousands of grape-sized berries. The berries aren't edible (as far as I know), but once they fall to the ground, they begin to decompose. You would not believe the stench. The only way I can describe it is to say it is a blend of a couple of other odors: 10% "dead animal" mingled with 90% "fresh dog poo". The smell lingers for weeks as the berries rot. Although my wife and I loved the looks of the tree, we knew it had to go. Our future master bedroom addition will be right next to where the ginko stood, and we couldn't fathom that smell just outside the window for a few months each year.

Despite my lengthy description of the ginko tree, this blog entry is actually about the large red oak tree that is positioned right in front of the house in the main blog photo. That tree was also removed in March, but I had this kind of crazy idea that I think will turn out to be really cool. When the tree was taken down, I told the tree service to leave as much of the trunk as was still in good shape. The trunk went up about 22 feet before there were any branches, so I was hopeful that there would be a lot of good lumber there.

As it turned out, branches that had broken off years ago had left voids in the upper trunk where rainwater collected and rotted the tree, so only about 15-1/2 feet of the trunk was still in good shape. The tree was huge, so the log that resulted was about 39 inches in diameter. It was so big that it had to be lowered with a crane so as not to leave a crater in the yard.

Before I had the tree taken down, I had done some research to see if I could figure out how to get the log milled into usable lumber. After some searching on the internet, I found a guy (Mike) with a mobile lumber mill who lives less than 20 miles away. Woo hoo! When he showed up, the contraption below was what he brought to cut the lumber.

The mill has a couple of big hydraulic arms on one side that picked up the log and rolled it onto the cutting area. I had also arranged with Mike to dry the wood for me in his solar kiln. The kiln can only take stock up to 12 feet long, so I had him divide the trunk into an 8 foot section and a 7-1/2 foot section. He cut it in two with his chainsaw, then the fun began!

At first, he made several passes to cut off the bark, followed by several plain-sawn slabs to get the log down to a roughly 22-inch square "post". Then, as I had requested, he began quarter-sawing the rest of the wood. If you're not familiar with the various types of cuts that can be done when producing lumber, quartersawn oak is the type that yields what is known as "tiger oak", which is common on lots of antique oak furniture.

By the time Mike and his wife (they work as a team) had finished sawing up the tree trunk, there was what I would estimate to be about 300 board feet of plainsawn boards, plus about 500 board feet of quartersawn boards. The great thing is that this will likely be more than enough lumber to build all of the cabinets and bathroom vanities for our remodeling project.

One thing I forgot to mention was that once the tree had been cut down, I counted 96 annual rings in the trunk. That means the tree was a seedling when the house was built in 1915. I think it is only fitting that the tree that stood watch over the front porch for so many years should be incorporated back into the house as we remodel it. There aren't too many people who can say that the wood for their cabinets and trim grew right out in the front yard!