After cutting two feet off of one timber, I loaded both into the back of my truck for the trip to Barbara Gill's sawmill.

    Barbara owns and operates La Grange Resources near Urbanna, VA. where she uses a Wood-Mizer bandsaw mill. Here she is cutting one of the timbers into one-inch-thick boards. It probably took her all of 15 minutes to cut both timbers into boards and that includes changing the blade after cutting a cut nail I didn't find beforehand. 

    With both walnut timbers cut into boards, I moved them into my shop to await milling into finished lumber.

    The stock is face jointed and ready for the thickness planer where I'll dimension them to 3/4-inches.

    After planing, the stock is now ready for edge jointing and sawing to straighten the edges and remove as many defects as possible.