Beauty in Damage

By and large, most of the wood we heat with at this little place here is long dead.  Very rarely do we have a tree that was cut down live, then cut into firewood.  If we do, it's because DH is doing some trimming or tree removal for someone we know.  At home, we just cut up the trees that have died and fallen over.  Because the emerald ash borer went through the area right around the time we were buying our property and building our house, most of our dead wood is ash. Someday we will probably run out of dead ash to burn, but after 11 heating seasons, there are still plenty of dead ash standing in the woods. 

Because I'm tuned that way, I tend to notice things that most people overlook.  Which is why, when I'm out helping DH with firewood, or am stoking the wood boiler myself, I get distracted and have to dig my phone out of my pocket to take pictures such as the ones to follow.

Pictures of insect damage that is revealed when the bark falls away from a piece of long dead wood.  The insects themselves were a negative, yet the trails they left behind I find somewhat beautiful.  Some look like patterns, some like fingerprints, and some even remind me of the petroglyphs we saw out west on vacation several years ago.