We were in Tennessee, and Thursday we made a trip to the sawmill down the road a piece (that's a Southern expression, for all you Yankees). We have a VERY good relationship with the owner, and we managed to come away from the mill with a few pieces of lumber:
This is what you see when you open the lid on the truck bed...
And this is what you see when you drop the tailgate:
177 bd/ft of red oak at $1.00 per bd/ft.
211 bd/ft of clear (and gorgeous) maple at $2.10 per bd/ft.
Almost all of the above is 6' shorts, some only 4.5', some of the boards are 11-12" wide, all 4/4 FAS kiln dried.
All of the short pieces you see on top and across the tailgate are cut-offs -- walnut, cherry, birch, sassafras, and a few oak -- some as wide as 10-11", all 4/4 except a couple of 8/4 sassafras------> AND EVERY BIT OF IT FOR FREE!!!! I would suspect that there is another $100 worth of lumber in those cut-offs that Don gave me, after telling me that what I didn't take would be burned. I got as much as would fit into the truck and left another full truck-load there for someone else. (Gloat #1).
Then, after I had given him a burled walnut pen that I had made and engraved with his name, together with an engraved lift-mechanism box, he has now committed to having me make pens for all of his best customers, engraved, with boxes engraved. (Gloat #2) I just ordered 50 of the boxes!
So, Saturday night we went to a high-school reunion party here in town, and early Sunday morning we hit the road back to New Mexico, arrived home on Monda afternoon. We ended up having to offload the maple onto my son's 18-wheeler, since the truck was so overloaded we blew out a new pair of air shocks. The maple will be here Thursday when son stops by on his way to California.