Look for a nice, straight stick, preferably green and hard like oak or ash. Use a measuring tape and cut the stick to exactly 4 or 6 feet. I like to use 4-foot-long canes because most log lengths are divisible by 4 feet. Mark the stick by cutting a slot in it in increments of 2 feet.
You'll need to cut another slot 4 or 6 inches away from the 2-foot mark to measure the additional length the milling machine requires. Most milling machines require logs to be at least 4 inches longer than the exact length to avoid any errors when cutting. You can avoid this by cutting each trunk as you measure, so that you have a new place to measure from, but switching from sawing to measuring and back again can really slow you down. If you have a log that is 12 feet sloping and you cut it 14 feet long, you end up with 14-foot lower grade wood or the sawmill has to cut those 2 feet to get the slope.
