Milling

There are few things as rewarding as being able to harvest renewable resources from the land. Unfortunately, today, things are quite a bit different than in generations past, where a man with some essential hand tools could build his family a home from timber that he harvested on his own land. Most folks today could scarcely put a tool shed in their backyard without a permit and some sort of government inspection. Even so, that spirit of freedom and self-sufficiency carries on in many of us today. There is an immense satisfaction one gets from delighting in the fruits of their labor. I don't know about you, but I get no satisfaction from buying eggs or meat at the grocery or buying lumber from the hardware store. There is no connection felt with the land when I turn on the tap for my municipal water. I can tell you, however, that when I go into my garden and eat raspberries right from the bush, I feel the life in that berry becoming part of my body. When I wake up early on a cold winter morning and start a fire in the wood stove to warm the house before my family rises, I feel a connection to the land. It's a different heat than you get from an electric or gas furnace. You can feel a life in the heat, and there is a richness to its warmth that feels more akin to the warmth of the sun than any other form of heat. The same can be said for harvesting your own lumber. I have harvested many trees from my little woods. Most have become that very same firewood I just mentioned. But some I have chosen to mill. I have yet to decide for what purpose, as it takes years to dry thick slabs of oak and maple. Perhaps when my son is older, we will build his first workbench with some of the oak. Maybe I will craft a hope chest for my daughter with the beautiful maple slabs. But no matter what is done with it, that lumber will always bring a connection to the land. I will be able to show my children their specific tree in the background of photos taken around our home. I will remember every detail about each tree, how it fell, where I cut, and how many times I sharpened the saw. I will recall the smell of the sawdust filling the air and the feel of the rough-cut slabs as I hauled them from the timber. I will remember the feeling of the grain as I work my plane across its face. Every step along the way brings me closer and closer to my connection with the land. This connection brings a deeper meaning and purpose to life.