About 2 years ago, I completely got out of woodworking and sold off all my tools. Many of you guys bought them. LOL We pursued other interests and hobbies and I have only built a few things with hand tools in the mean time. Anyway, fast forward to today and we have a hobby sized sawmill on order.

My Dad and I went in halves on it. We studied and read everything we could and finally decided to get a Norwood Frontier OS23 with 10hp motor for our first rodeo. I wanted to go a little higher end, but we were sticking to a budget and didn't want to wait 22 to 53 weeks. Anyway, my thoughts are that if we really stay involved, we can always upgrade down the road if needed.

Most of the trees on our property are under the 23" capacity of the mill, so 80 to 90 percent of what we have should fit. We ordered a 10 pack of Cooks blades to get started. Our farm is covered with yellow pine mostly but we do have some other trees like oak, poplar, etc. In addition to some farm buildings and structures, I'm hopeful to start cutting and building some wood supply so that in a year or two, I can ease back into a basic wood shop setup. When I got out of the hobby 2 years ago, I sold off tools like Hammer, Festool, Felder, Lie Nielsen, Oneida, etc. After 2 years of reflection though, it occurred to me that I had way more fun with woodworking when I had a more simple shop with a basic cabinet style table saw and table top planer. Will be taking that lesson to heart whenever I start acquiring tools down the road.

While we wait for the sawmill (6 week shipping estimate), I spent some time this past weekend clearing a site for it. Will be setting up some areas to permanently install the mill, and have log storage as well as some lumber drying areas. Attached a few pictures of the clearing in progress. Stuck my Stihl MS261 on a few logs that we have on the ground already for size reference. The larger one measured 18" across, which is pretty large for our current trees. Gone are most of our 36" sized tress from the 1950's. Current crop is around 16 years old.

I'm open to any tips of wisdom as we get into this. Thank you.

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