As with the past few weekends, the main preoccupation is... yes, you guessed it... wood chopping...
It is a strenuous activity, but I enjoy 'punishing' myself this way...
And as
I joked with a dear friend when I visited him in San Francisco last March ... 'chopping wood makes me feel like a man'... :)
Strenuous... especially when the grain of the wood is not straight as in the above specimen (an elm, perhaps?)...
Wooh, you can chop and chop but that thing just will not split that easily...
Last October, we first heard the sound of wood cracking when we stood near the firewood shed...
But inexperienced as we are, the sound was not from the wood drying...
It was the sound of worms chewing on the wood...
See the above picture? It has no eyes, and the jaws are very hard... (I touched it)...
Searching the net, I found out that they are wood borers... tanbark borers, perhaps? (Source)
Their length is about 1.5 to 2 cm...
Each time I chop wood, I get tens and tens of them...
Our favorite bird, Daurian Redstart aka the Potager Y mascot, loves to come by whenever he (yes, a 'he') sees me chopping wood...
Imagine the feasts he gets each time he catches me with the axe...
And yes, the 'man' needs to take a break from the chopping, sometimes...
working hard to keep warm...it carries us back to our ancestors! I first chopped wood when I was about 9 years old! I don't even think I would have the strength now to chop kindling! I loved the sound the wood made when it finally stopped messing around and decided to give itself up to being split! THWONK!!!!
ReplyDeleteenjoyed your photos, including the wood borers...they were created just to eat wood!
Yeap,wood is a lovely material to touch, to work with...and to smell... :)
DeleteThat's a lot of worms for one bird! Those worms aren't edible for humans? ;p
ReplyDeleteNice photos of you. :)
The birdie eats perhaps two or three on once occasion, I'd think... hmmm, human consumption... maybe... perhaps one day, I may find someone brave enough to try to chew on one of them...
DeleteAh, the photos of yours truly? They are taken by the 'man' himself... on self-timer...
You sure look relaxed, like it's a candid photo. :)
DeleteSuch a natural model.^^
With the camera set, I had 20 seconds to dash to the location, take the cup, relax, smile a little, and pretend to look cool... ;)
DeleteOk ,have to say it yukky yuk yuk!,you are a real man to touch those grubs.
ReplyDeleteThey look quite cute, actually... ;)
ReplyDeleteOh, you got the big piles of trophy! It can last you a lifetime! Aren't you adding more CO2 in the atmosphere, and other fume hazards? hahaha! We in the province also use wood still while cooking some food, because we have lots of them too. My 81 yr-old mother still does that for us. And she cuts molave, also a hardwood. I pity her and doesn't want her to do that, but she wants doing that too. Lastly, those worms are so yucky looking! yucks!
ReplyDeleteMaybe at best, two seasons of use... your grandma at 81 is still cutting wood? Wooh, I salute her...
DeleteYou make me thinking very hard.
ReplyDeleteLuckily, I do not need to chop wood for winter in Malaysia.
While a kid growing up in my kampong, I used to chop firewood out of rubber trees for cooking...
DeleteThe way you described made me reflected over life when I was one year to 16 years like that, our family needed to chop firewood to cook as you too. Interesting, we even got a small house for firewoods. At that time, we hated doing such work but now it is more of a fun, right?
ReplyDeleteYou are right on with that... when forced to do so as a kid, grrrr... but now, it miraculously became a joyful past-time...
DeleteI also spend some time almost every day splitting wood. Fortunately most of my wood is oak with fairly straight seems, so it splits fairly easily. I haven't had the encounters with wood borers as you've had, but I really don't mind leaving them to you to share with your pet.
ReplyDeleteOak is a lovely material to work with... lucky for you with regards to the wood borers... I foresee they will be with us for a long time to come...
DeleteI believe those grubs are a delicacy in certain parts of the world. Wood chopping is a form of training used by boxers to get in shape ;)
ReplyDeleteFried in oil, I imagine they could taste great... didn't know that boxers chop wood as part of their training...
DeleteLooks like you have enough wood for the year, but if you want to "feel like a man" then by all mean, chop wood every day! :-)
ReplyDeleteYeap, there seems to be sufficient wood to get us past this season but I should be out there in the forest collecting more wood for the next season...
DeleteWood-cutting seems more like fun than work.. I had better go get my axe sharpen ..Its a Carl Seliper which I had kept for 30 long years and never seen any action .
ReplyDeleteJohn... thank you for dropping by... wonder if we have met before... no? Anyway,am not familiar with the Carl Seliper axe, but shall look it up and see...
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