The other day while looking into the woods on my way to the mailbox, I saw a dead poplar that had lost its top. I also saw woodpecker holes in the trunk of the tree.
I walked over to have a closer look and what should I see inside? My favorite green-staining fungus at work!
I've previously worked with fungus-stained wood and was excited at the prospect of finding another piece that wasn't completely degraded. This poplar was destined to become firewood so with the promise of green-stained wood before me, I grabbed the chainsaw and got to work.
Timberrrrr...
I cut the tree up into pieces and hauled the piece I wanted to the house and split it into a more usable size with the splitting maul.
I could see that the green was mostly in the degraded part of the wood and it was unlikely that I'd be getting any decent pieces out if it. Not like this small stick that I found just sitting on the firewood pile AFTER I cut down the poplar. Just sitting there. No cutting needed.
That figures.
It wasn't a loss though, while cutting the poplar on the band saw I noticed some interesting spalting and a mark that looks like an insect body on this piece.
It isn't sturdy enough to be a wearable piece, but I sanded and oiled it anyway, just to see what it would look like.
I love the spalting around the bug hole and the marks that look like petroglyphs. (is that a monkey?)
You never know what's hidden in the wood. Could be something, could be nothing, could be monkeys.
