re: Things fall down 2

I have mentioned this before, but when I want the best quality southern yellow pine at the orange and blue stores, I usually go to the 2x12s.  It takes higher quality logs to produces those.  I then rip them to the width that I want.  I try to pick boards that either have no pith or where it is nearly perfectly centered at both ends.  When you rip those down the middle and remove any pith (you may lose about 1-1.5" but you can use where crappy wood will do fine), you wind up with very stable quarter sawn boards.   Of course, I also sight down the length to make sure that they have no warping at all to start with and make sure that the end grain at both ends looks about the same to minimize diagonal grain.  I also avoid any with loose knots or knots along the edges or where the knots are larger than about 1.5" diameter.    That approach should work with other available species as well.  It can take some time digging through the stack but unless I need a bunch of them at a time, I can usually find what I need off the top of the stacks within a few minutes.  I did this over a couple of months time when I was collecting the lumber for my workbench and basically wound up with #1 select lumber out of the #2 stacks.   It pays to chat up the person at the custom order or pro desk to find out what day they usually get a new delivery (here I found that it is usually the same day each week) so that you can be there early that day to get first pick.   IIRC, a SYP 12' 2x12 was just under $20 back then (2019) but nearly doubled during the pandemic.  Looking at the HD website, the price is back down to $22.  BTW, I usually just took my cordless circular saw with me to the store and cut the boards in half to get them into my van (unless I bought 10' or shorter boards) rather than asking them to cut them for me.