I went up to the logging site with my salesman from Sierra Pacific to meet the fellows doing the harvesting and see for myself what the logs look like.
The logging is being done by a small family owned outfit. It was great to meet them and to see the effort they are making to provide some great quality logs with little to no damage from handling. Processing machines are not being used, which commonly damage the outside of logs. Loggers walk through the woods to select trees, then fell and limb the tree with a chainsaw. Logs are then skidded back to the landing. The loggers were quite fascinated that I was going to be building a home out of raw logs and insisted that I cut one down myself.
The logs being harvested are fire salvage logs, they still have green needles but will probably not make it through the year. The fire was the "Day fire", which burned in Modoc County in early August.  Some nice large Ponderosa pine logs.

Foundation is poured and the lot has been graded. Be back in the spring

Day of the pour

Underground utilities are installed, driveway is graveled and footings have been dug. Ready for formwork

We removed 42- 130' tall lodgepole pines for the home site

“There is some of the same fitness in a man's building his own house that there is in a bird's building its own nest. Who knows but if men constructed their dwellings with their own hands, and provided food for themselves and families simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty would be universally developed, as birds universally sing when they are so engaged? But alas! we do like cowbirds and cuckoos, which lay their eggs in nests which other birds have built, and cheer no traveller with their chattering and unmusical notes. Shall we forever resign the pleasure of construction to the carpenter?” 
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden