Box Elder Tree

It has been a while since you have heard from me! I bet you can guess it – yes, we’ve been busy. Spring brings excitement for outdoor projects and great weather to work in. I love spring. Most definitely my favorite season.

We had to cut down our Box Elder Tree – it was a weak tree and was splitting in half over our house and our neighbors. Not good – plus we found the majority of the root system was rotted along with the core of the 2 main trunks. But all in all, it allowed us to stock our basement with wood for future woodworking projects!

Box elder wood is light in color and develops interesting red stains where the wood has been injured. Here and here are some great pictures of what the red staining can look like. In ours, the rot, past tree injections, and multiple nails & metal things made for some great red stains!

After it was cut down, we loaded up the wood (thanks Scott for your help!) and hauled it to a guy Nick knows that owns a saw mill. Is was just a one-man-operation with rusty old machinery. Is was entirely exposed to the weather and it looked as thought it may never start. But it was well-oiled and ready to work. This whole production had good ole’ Montana charm and character about it. It was a neat process to see! He would position it just so with hydraulic levers and use a band saw to cut slaps of whatever size we would like. So far, only one log has been cut up – many more to go!

Here are some pictures of the process: