Because we can only go down to the farm on weekends (until we move in November) we usually arrive late on Friday nights. When we arrived last night we snatched up our torches and went searching in the pitch black paddocks, curious if our recently felled trees had been milled. Sure enough, our beams of light illuminated tidy stacks of fresh lumber propped in a paddock near the cottage. Exciting! It was chilly outside and we’d yet to have dinner, so we dashed back and lit the fire. We’d have a closer look in the morning.

We marched back out first thing to gush over our new wood supply. The transportable mill had left a pile of sawdust which our resident sheep had decided was as good a bed as any.

In the end we got about seven cubic metres of milled wood total. About a third is from the single large macrocarpa and the rest is from the ten or so lawson cypress.

The macrocarpa is gorgeous. It’s a honeycomb orange and the grain is striking. Distinctly aromatic, we were getting wafts of it from as far away as the cottage. It’s so pungent I want to sink my teeth into it. Is it strange that I actually did give it a nibble?

Macrocarpa turns a silver grey when weathered, which has a lovely rustic look. Resistant to rot it’s great for outdoor furniture (and garden sleepers!). There might even be our future dining table in there somewhere, too…

There are quite a few logs left which weren’t milled, apparently because their lengths and shapes weren’t suitable. I think we’ll try to salvage parts of them, rather than turning the whole lot into firewood. I can see some pretty nice chunks hidden therein, as well as a couple of thick slabs inside the massive trunk end that was discarded. If for nothing else but firewood, what about blocks for sculpture carving or rustic stools and the like? Hey, if we had a lathe we’d never be short of fruit bowls!

We have firewood coming out of our ears. Holy crap. This is a good thing, of course. As I mentioned in an earlier post we wouldn’t have been able to supply our own firewood for a few years until our plantations had grown sufficiently. This bunch should last us a couple of seasons at least, so that’s a good head start. We’ve bought a decent chainsaw and splitting axe, and by the looks of things we have our work cut out for us…

The bloke who’s leasing our land for grazing was kind enough to put the fence back up which had to be taken down for tree felling. What a legend. He’s a friendly fellow and will be an invaluable asset to us newbies.