Sweetgum and Eggs

 I've related my difficulties with splitting sweetgum a number of times previously.  While relatively small pieces (up to six inches or so) splits fine, larger pieces are a nightmare.  The wood doesn't have a straight grain.

Yesterday I was splitting what I thought was some oak cut last year about this time.  It was hard to split when fresh, so I stacked it for a while.  Wood that I'm splitting now is for next fall.  I grabbed a piece that was about 10-12 inches in diameter and put it on the splitter.  The splitter was able to split it once, whereupon I saw that it was sweetgum.  I tried to quarter one of the halves and the splitter choked.  I then grabbed my maul and wedge.  I manged to get it into quarters but it took a lot of work.  You can see the blue streak on the wedge as it dug erratically through the piece.

It looks like a straight-grained tree that was twisted by some malevolent force as it grew.  I'm still amazed that there's wood rated worse for splitting than sweetgum (sycamore and elm, according to the University of Kentucky site).

In other news, the chickens are steadily, if slowly, laying eggs. I may have up to three laying now, and I'm getting one per day most days.  They seem to be using the nesting box on the ground inside the tractor consistently now.  The lighter-colored eggs below are from my birds, while the darker ones are from Costco.