Had to work for this one

Had a willow oak at the nursery that was in a bad spot. It was in between 2 greenhouses and another building. We been doing some trading with 1 of the local tree services so we told him to take it down and just leave it lay as I would clean up the aftermath. Well, the area this 50' tree was in was only 12' by 30' and I dont know how he did it but that entire tree was all piled in that small space. He needs to go into business packing suitcases for traverlers or something. In the first pic is what I brought home. I saved everything that was 2" on up. The dump truck you see was filled twice with brush and twigs that I hauled away.

The main trunk was layin there under all of the rest and was still about 12' long. I hated to wack it up since I love woodworking with oak and this is some pretty stuff but...I sure couldnt get it outta there untill I chewed it down to 36" pieces.

Even then that was some heavy stuff to get out to where I could get the skidloader to it and load it.

Thats when a portable mill comes in handy. Even the those slabs can be a bear to move. Kinda like this one and it took 3 people to move each slap.

I'ld love to have 1 of those but it aint in my budget as of now. I am still thinkin I will save the best piece of that trunk and mill it down and sticker it up till it dries and it will still make for some good looking rails and stiles on some face frames. Gonna quarter saw it of coarse.

Nice haul
Every time I see some nice straight grained hard woods cut into fire wood,
I think how nice it would be to have some boards made from it, even 3 & 4 foot long

I just read willow when I first read your post and was gonna say it doesnt look like willow. Nice score, some are easy, some aren't.

It's Quercus phellos. We are at the most northern zone of where they like to live and there aint many around these parts. It was a beutiful tree and hated to see it go but alas, it was something that had to happen.

I hear ya. I cut mostly red elm for the stove and I've often thought about trying to mill some down for lumber for various projects. I'm just not sure how well it would stableize just air dryin it since around here it holds alot of moisture and then when cut releses it very quickly. I'm afraid that after all the work involved I would end up with some wooden gutters for my barn.