Firewood

Red cross bill - this one is in a Douglas-fir rather than ponderosa pine.

Yesterday we spent most of the day splitting and loading firewood.  The firewood started out as a big, dead ponderosa pine tree.  It died last summer, 2009, due to an infestation of bark beetles.  It stood on the edge of one of our wheat fields, and could have fallen into the field if left to it's own choice.  Craig dropped it neatly along the fence line a couple of days ago.  It was a beautiful day for working outside - cool and damp with occasional showers.  We used a hydraulic splitter powered by a tractor.  But before the tractor started up, I heard a flock of red crossbills chittering happily in the trees nearby.  They were visiting the ponderosa pine trees, eating pine seed, and were very happy until a red-tailed hawk flew past.  They were very agitated about that, but quickly settled down again when the hawk was out of sight.  I also heard a lot of red-breasted nuthatches - they were everywhere! 

Ready to split the big rounds.  The hydraulic splitter is in the foreground.

Loading the split wood into the truck.

The wood is almost loaded.  In the end, the truck was full so that the wood was mounded over the top.