Resource:NewsOfTheNorth.net

My wife and I bought our place on Lake Mildred in 2003 as part of our retirement plans to move back to Wisconsin. The home was built in the early '80s, nestled in the woods along the lake’s shoreline. It wasn’t a fixer-upper but it did need some work and would need the addition of a work shop.

We decided to start the process of making the place ready for our move during the summer of 2004 by painting the entire living space. Living here for that summer indicated we had additional work to do to aid air circulation around the house for moisture control and to remove some large dead red pine trees and a white pine – the latter leaning precariously towards the house and parked cars. Our plans accelerated forward during a company downsizing in 2005.

Removing trees from the property would seem an easy step. Just cut them down. But my wife and I have shared a common life process to reduce our environmental imprint. When working, I manifested this goal in my research to do more with less (source reduction).

In Rochester, we built a home in the '80s that was energy efficient and planted trees on our property to help pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Our point of view is that the minuscule difference that one person makes can be significant when multiplied by millions of people.

It's easy to say my little piece doesn’t count but if we do work together towards a common goal of reduced environmental imprint, it really does matter. Our country had a clear indication of that impact this year when gas prices went through the roof. Each of us drove a little less and soon it was measured in the millions of miles per month that eventually led to a drop-off in oil demand, as witnessed by the significant fall in oil prices. It matters.

Something for the centuries

But what to do with these tall trees? We came upon an idea to use them as part of the renovation work. Our first inclination was to use the large pines to make timber (beams and posts) for a timber-framed shop. No, neither of us have timber-framing experience!

In 2005 I helped build a timber-framed shelter in Naples, N.Y., and then took a timber-framing class in Franklin, N.C. to learn how to build a building. Timber frames, when cared for and using large logs and construction methods optimized in the Middle Ages, last centuries.

Our first plan was to harvest the pines as logs. The logs, after some drying, would be cut into timbers that I would use to build a shop. Additionally, we wanted the whole process of tree removal to leave no evidence that it occurred (except of course for the stumps cut off at ground level).

The Foley’s Tree Service in Tomahawk was recommended to do the job. In the video (see below), Ted Foley is seen in the top of one of the red pine cutting off a section. What a ride! The white pine had some serious core deterioration that precluded getting logs from it. The logs from the red pine were stacked and stored for a year.

Plan B

I began to lay out the roof line of the shop to match that of the house and garage. It was then I realized the logs were too short for the design. I did not have the skill to scarf the logs together (nor the trust that the joint would hold!), so we came up with another plan. We would convert logs into boards to be used as a ceiling in the new construction. Andy Behrle has a portable saw mill and with it, we cut the logs into beautiful boards, having way too much fun in the process.

I sticked the wood pile to air dry the boards. This would take a season. I then occupied myself by hand-digging away the hill behind our garage to create a flat spot for the shop. Once again it required more trees to come down. This time it was red oak.

Some of these trees were on the up-slope side of the garage, too near the edge of the cut made to create a space for the garage and starting to crumble this edge and lean towards the garage (marked with florescent tape in the photo). Others were near the garage and house and once again causing problems for air circulation around the house, keeping its roof and walls too damp.

In total, about 12 red oak trees (and one more dead red pine) were to be removed. Foley’s tree service was once again called. Now the question arose, what to do with the red oak?

A new life as flooring and paneling

It was then Karen and I recalled a commercial we saw for Enterprise Wood Products, located in Rhinelander at the corner of the Hwy. 8 by-pass and Cty. G. Ray Burgan described how they can convert trees from your property into finished wood products such as flooring or paneling. Perfect for the red oak. We wanted to put hardwood floors in our dining room and living room and now we can do it using trees harvested from our property. How cool is that! I learned from a call to Ray that they can make bead board too from the pine. A new plan!

The Foleys took down the red oak trees with their same attention to leaving no footprint. We kept the chips from the branches to cover foot paths we are making. Chunks of the red oak that could not be milled into flooring were cut into firewood that I split for next year’s use in our fireplace and a new stove in the addition.

The logs were taken to Enterprise Forest Products, located 10 miles south of Rhinelander on Cty. G, owned by Steve Ory, a business partner of Ray Burgan's. Here they were cut into boards and kiln dried. Enterprise Wood Products then received the boards and milled the oak into flooring. They are milling the red pine into bead board that will be used as the ceiling in the new renovation.

For Karen and me, the process has been very pleasing. We have worked with folks who value the land and the trees, all skilled in their trade. We are helping our local economy through these small businesses, and in return they are helping us harvest the pleasure of using the wood from our land in our house.

This process also helps us live up to our goal of reducing our environmental impact. We are using local renewable resources which require less transportation (greenhouse gasses from fossil fuels) to get to the finished product, compared to buying from some distant quarter.

And, yes, we cut down trees to make this happen; not so environmentally friendly you say. Our plans are to plant some to replace those we removed to restart the cycle.

Soon the wood will arrive: red oak for the flooring in the dining room and living room, bead board pine for the ceiling of the room above the garage. We can’t wait to learn how to do the install!