Mantle

We love our neighbors, the Rasmussens.  They are awesome and we have a really good time hanging out with them.  So when they had a tree that needed to be taken care of in the back part of their property, it wasn't a surprise that Jeff and Jake took care of it.  And while they were working, they had a good idea... use the wood of the Black Locust to make mantles.

 

So with a bit of enginuity (using the truck), they pulled the 6'+ pieces of wood up the hill and onto Jeff and Ashley's driveway.  They were HEAVY!

 

So then Jake did some calling around and found a guy that would pick up the wood and cut it to our specs and only charge $87/hour.  (I don't quite know why it's such an odd number, but we weren't going to complain.)  So we worked on the size of mantles we wanted and wrote down the info to have it ready when the guy came the next morning to pick up the wood.

 

The kids were on a 2-hour delay that morning, so we went over to watch as they wenched the logs up on the truck.  I didn't envy them at all - those were some heavy beasts.

 

And after an hour of work, our mantles were cut and we got some rough cut boards with the extra wood.  Both Rasmussens and us thought it was a pretty good deal to get a rough cut (and imperfect) "mantle" for only $43.50.  Have you seen the cost of mantles?  Sheesh!

So here's our beastly 6' mantle.  Until it dries it will be extremely heavy.  Glad we don't have to carry it around anywhere.  And I'm going to use the extra boards to make a coffee table for the family room.  We'll be sure to show pictures as we complete these projects.