Our Morning at the Elk Ranch... and it has nothing to do with elk

Now that we're settling back into big city society while off the road, we're reconnecting with some of our contacts in the local area.  One such contact is an acquaintance of Diana's who manages a ranching operation just outside town.  The rancher who owns the place seems to do it all, from cows, to elk, to crops, and he runs a small time wood mill where he cuts red fir into some really nice board lumber. and they have tons of scraps which would fit really nicely into our wood cook stove!  So Diana asks the manager what they plan to do with the scraps and she replies -- "just come and load up all you want, any time."

Holy cow, the mother load!  We thought we entered firewood heaven.

But wait, there's more!

Apparently the milling operators are only interested in certain prime cuts of lumber because, not only do they have the round edge scraps, there's a ton of dimensional red fir in all sizes, shapes and lengths mixed in!  We have plans now to side the studio with some of the nicer boards.

Here's the truck with a half of a load left from our first run.  Notice all the 8' trim pieces and 2x2's on the left!

And of course we recruited all hands to help unload.

We stopped at two truckloads today (about 2 cords) , but have formed a plan to return to the massive pile twice a week until we have filled our wood pile and the wood piles of everyone in town who needs it!  We will not run out of fire wood this year!

While talking to the manager of the ranch before we finished loading for our first trip we asked what they do when they get too many scraps.  She said they used to cut it up and sell it off, but that the workers are needed for other tasks now.  Instead, in the recent past they have just lit the pile on fire to get rid of it.  Can you believe it?  

Afterwards we celebrated our victory with a picnic in the back yard! 

That wood rack in the background won't be empty for long!