The Early Bird Gets the Worm

This past long weekend for New Year's Day, I took advantage of the day off to cut and split some firewood.  (More on that in a post next week.)  I got out my trusty double-sided ax, along with a sledge hammer and a wedge and got busy splitting well-seasoned oak for firewood.  It was cold, but as I split, I began shedding layers of clothes.  First the jacket, then the hat, then the sweatshirt.  Splitting firewood is hard work, but it is a satisfying endeavor.  Sometimes the ax bounces off of the wood!  You turn the log from side to side, looking for a weakness in the wood grain to exploit.  As you continue, suddenly you are able to get the ax in a little bit.  At that point, you insert the wedge and bang it with the sledge hammer.  Your ears are greeted to a satisfying cracking noise as the wedge penetrates the hard wood and splits wide open.  And then you do it again...

When you get near a knot in the wood, things get interesting.  The wood will not split no matter how hard you try because the wood grains are so twisted and rock-hard.  Some of those pieces will have to be burned whole.  There are other interesting things in the wood.  There are times when you split a piece of wood and encounter something gross.  Revolting even.

What in the world are we looking at?  I don't know the scientific name, but I believe it is the larvae of the oak wood-boring beetle.  I would think that this beetle is responsible for the death of my trees.  The larvae is so destructive.  They eat (drill) tunnels through the hard wood.  That is a remarkable feat.  I pulled one of the larvae out of its tunnel.  He was fat and heavy in my hand.  There were numerous larvae.

I began thinking that this would be a great survival food - a delicacy, to be sure.  I bet it is high in protein.  What type of recipes would these larvae be good in?  Blending them up in a protein shake would get you going.  Making a sandwich with several all lined up or rolled up in a tortilla might be something to try.  In the end, I opted for simplicity and just popped it in my mouth and chewed.  The taste was...

I'm pulling your leg.  I'd have to be mighty hungry before I would eat that thing!  But there's no way that I was going to waste all these larvae that I was finding.  I called for the hens.  When they came, I flicked the fat larvae to them.  Those gluttonous girls snatched the larvae up in their beaks and ran away quickly.  All it took was two pecks and a swallow and the oak-borer beetle larvae was devoured.  Then they came running back to me looking for more.

Wood-splitting turned out to be a multi-tasking exercise.  I now have about a cord of firewood cut and split and stacked.  I was able to feed the hens their fill of oak borer larvae.  That's a win-win situation!