What am I doing wrong?

[DixieReb31]

Much thanks to all who have given their knowledge freely.  Very much appreciated!
When I grow up I want to be as smart as you guys!

[customsawyer]

In looking at the end grain of the lumber. It looks like you squared up to a about a 8" cant and then split it in half to get 2 boards at a time. As you have now learned that don't turn out the best lumber. We all had to learn the same lesson.

[Magicman]

Refer back to Reply #19 that alan gage made.  Pay attention to the first link that he shared and the sawing procedure detailed there.  Also review WDH 's Reply #23 above.

No matter what you do you will occasionally have a log that had a bad history and it's lumber will give you problems.


 
This is over 4Mbf of 2X4's sawn from 17 logs, one of which exhibited stress and produced 4X4's with some crook.  Thankfully it was one of the smallest log so not much heartburn.  As you can see, they are laying dead straight.

When sawing framing lumber, saw down to your targeted cant from the sides and saw through from either the hump or horn faces.  You should not have to "look" for the sweep in a log because very few are completely straight with a centered pith.

[Don P]

This is a good chapter from the Wood Handbook to become familiar with. There is a lot of technical jargon and tables which you should not use for designing a building... but, the general information in this chapter is gold.
Wood Handbook--Chapter 4--Mechanical Properties of Wood (fs.fed.us)

I'd start with the section on knots, pg 27. Notice in that section a knothole would actually be a stronger stick than a nice intergrown red knot, they explain why, its all about slope of grain. On pg 30 is a section on ring orientation, someone made a comment about strength in relation to orientation, there is the gospel, kind of depends on which strength property we are talking about. Anyway that is a very good chapter, one I have read and reread since I bought my first copy with lawn mowing money, and I understand something new just about every time. There is a lot there and in my fifth decade of reading that section I am apparently one of the slow children  :D