Randall Williams: Fireside Farm and Sawmill

Welcome to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast.

Today's guest is Randall Williams from Fireside Farm and Sawmill. Randall explains that the farm side of the business started first when he and his wife moved to a nine-acre homestead together. They were both teachers and wanted to live a life around growing food, raising livestock, and tending to their community.

 

When they first moved, Randall had some difficulty with some giant pine trees right behind the house. So he called a forester to come and look at them, and then a logger who said the only option was to clear cut the area. That option horrified Randall, so he decided to fell and mill the trees himself.

 

One of his neighbors who owned a sawmill came by to consult with Randall, and he said that it was possible, but it would take a long time. So he sold Randall his old sawmill, which Randall then used to start milling all of that lumber for use around his property. 

 

"At that point, people started bullying me to mill their lumber. At the time, I was teaching at a Quaker school in Durham, and on the weekends, I was milling lumber for other people. That kind of started the process where I started selling lumber and then coming up with a fee structure to mill for other people.

 

In 2017, my wife and I left our jobs teaching and went all-in on the farm. And at that point, I ramped up the sawmill operation, which has been going full time for the last four years. Nowadays, I run the farm operation, and my wife grows cut flowers mainly for weddings."

 

• Randall Williams

 

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