There is more than meets the eye when peering at a chunk of potential furnace wood.  With a sledge and wedge or a mechanical wood splitter, the inner life of a tree's bole, some parts more than 100 years old, can appear as paging back in history.

Squirrels, chipmunks, woodpeckers and mice find cracks, rots and hollows for storing items as large as black oak acorns.  Food for later times, but forgotten or not needed, is revealed.  Sometimes the animal itself is there with the evidence.

Ants, usually large, black ants cherished by Pileated Woodpeckers crawl clumsily when their warmer hidin...