Carport Repair Logistics

One of the best homestead investments we’ve made has been our small portable sawmill. I first showed it to you in this post. We found it on Craigslist and got it for building the barn. If we’d had to buy all the lumber for that barn, we’d probably still be working on it, because that’s how it is with pay-as-you-go. That lumber mill helped us get the job done and has more than paid for itself.

Originally the mill was set up in the driveway. That meant dragging pine logs up from the woods and mill them in there, we eventually moved the sawmill down into the woods. It made more sense to haul cut lumber rather than uncut logs, not to mention leaving all the waste slabs and sawdust in the woods and out of sight. The downside was that our outbuildings, fences, and gates made it more round-about to take the tractor down into the woods and back. Even before Dan decided what to do about the carport, he was thinking about an easier way to transport the lumber to the project site. After running through several ideas, we decided to change the chicken yard fencing and install a tractor gate like this…

Now that he’s ready to start on the carport, we’ve been discussing whether to make changes. We had talked about adding an outdoor cooking area and also thought it would be useful to store Dan’s log splitter there since that’s where the firewood is stored. He proposed extending the roof a bit on the left side.

With all that in mind, he began to mill the posts and beams.

As he mills, he brings it up from the woods and stores it in the workshop until needed.

To be continued . . . . .