Out to the Woodpile!

Oh, the things I do!  With the weather supposedly going to worsen here for the next few days, I decided that I better get out and split a little firewood.  Both of the menfolk in the house, Mark and Michael, have that cold or flu-like stuff that I had last week.  Neither of them needed to be out in the wet, windy weather so the job was left up to me.  I also needed to split and gather some kindling to start the fire if need be.  Since I am not sure just how far down this way the cold weather will come, I just thought it might be better to be prepared.  You know..one of those "better safe than sorry" situations.  So after getting them all settled in with coffee and breakfast, I headed out to the woodpile.

Now, first, let me tell you that I have not split wood in some time so I most likely will be feeling it more tomorrow than today! This morning...it felt good...tomorrow, maybe not.  I split some kindling first just to warm up, so to speak.  I wanted to make sure that I could still swing an axe!!!  Yep..that went well!  In just a few minutes, there was enough kindling for several fire-startings so I was set to move on to the larger wood.  I surveyed the pile and figured that I better just dive in if I was ever going to get this done!  A large log was chosen and set on end.  Wham!  With the first smack with the axe, I split that baby right in half!! Whew!  I was good!  Thinking that I had done something special, I proceeded.  This was not hard work at all!  Then I saw them..the ugly white grubs!  No wonder my logs were splitting so easily!  Grub worms had literally riddled the logs!  The once hard oak wood was now more like a type of cork with hundreds of holes gnawed throughout the log!  This was a dead oak tree that Mark had cut with the chainsaw just two weeks ago.  I am supposing that it was one that was damaged years ago with Hurricane Katrina and the woodborers infested through the damaged bark.  This had eventually killed the tree and now the grubs were merely eating their way through my woodpile!  

Our trees have taken a beating since Katrina.  Although we initially lost hundreds of live trees, the infiltration of beetles has continued to kill many more.  There is not a lot we can do short of cutting any infested tree.  This would mean that I would have no trees whatsoever left on the hillside.  Very few are good solid trees any more.  It amazes me that the effects of a hurricane can be felt this long after the fact.  The only thing that can possibly help us now is a healthy inhabitance of woodpeckers!  In fact, thinking back on it, I have noticed that we have had more nesting pairs of woodpeckers for these past couple of years!  Come on, woodpeckers...get to drilling those hole!  There are grubs to be eaten!