Oh man... I love your posts. I am definitely on the same path as you in terms of homesteading... though we just had to move from the forest to a more suburbian neighborhood, we're still working on self-reliance, and we haven't lost the average we had so all that is still happening.
I can't wait to start using my mill. It's funny I use a knife or a sharp rock to mark my logs too, I'd rather keep my peint for other things!