A.O. once again you amaze me with your roots,, my family too comes from Oklahoma, Woodward way, spent every summer as a kid driving out with my folks to the reunions, most often held at the Boiling Springs State park, that said, Ox had some good suggestions, as usual, and I'm not too different. I will say this,, when you get the mill, the more practice you have the better for when you start sawing stock that has more (value or purpose) factor. And with what I believe you will be sawing, SYP, what I did was to pick out some nicer clear smaller logs that needed to go for what ever reason, and make these logs into stickers. 1" squares make good ones,, I would saw these logs clean through, then stack up on edge and make the 1" drops through, bundle them up, (ratchet straps work well) measure out the length you want, Mine were 42" long, this makes good for both 6" wide and 8" wide boards per layer, sticks should go (depending on how fast you plan on using) at least 4 evenly spaced in 8', 5 in 10" and so on,, for furniture grade stock, 18" apart is a good number. All this saying, learn the saw, and logs, and there is no end to learning logs
as Ox said some will jump up and bite ya! If these sticks are put up in the dry, they will last for years,,I say make a big pile of them, I built two racks to hold them, one for oak stickers, the other for pine, I could go on and on, this said, learn the mill and what works for your needs,, last thing,,many times plans are made for a stack of lumber and the timing gets pushed back,, more stickers the better, evenly spaced, close to the ends of the boards.. And with this, really try to keep all logs sawn to like footage respectively , it makes lumber stacks and stickering so much easier..