Part 2: So Darrell

decided that among his many hobbies and interests he wanted to also become a lumberjack. Since picking the lot, we knew we'd have a lot of work cut out for us. Honestly, anywhere we had chosen to build on the lot would have required a lot of work - the ennntiiirrrre parcel is wooded...

To save some money we decided to do the work ourselves. Darrell's parents agreed to help us (his brother and his fiance came up some, too!) and also enlisted the help of their friend Joel - whom after this logging experience, I've named "Joel, Strongest Man in the World." He literally pushed a tree over... with his bare hands!! I have it on video if you don't believe me!

Within 2 weekends we had almost 130 trees on the ground.

Darrell in his lumberjacking (new word) gear.

Here's a view of some of the carnage. I did have remorse for the trees that fell.. but we only intend to cut down those that were necessary for the house to be set on the lot, no more than need be.
It was absolutely amazing to watch the trees fall. Some of them were so large you could feel the ground vibrate when they hit. Joel, the Strongest Man in the World, used to run his own tree service so he would start to saw down one, notch out a few others, then cut down one that would fall and take out the 3-4 that were notched and leaning. It was really amazing to watch. I took some video of the trees falling and if I ever figure out how to upload them here, I will.

Now, once they were on the ground, Darrell was in his element. You see, we decided to buy a saw mill- a portable one.
Here he is cutting his first log!

We're hoping to use the wood that he mills to build the attached garage we're putting on the house and to make some odds and ends for camp. Darrell's pretty proud of it (the mill and his lumber) and I'm pretty proud of him :)