Hairy Woodpecker

Picture taken by my neighbor, Doug Dearhamer.

I noticed Mike's truck in the parking lot at work. There are two cross sections of an ash tree sticking up out of the back. They are about as long as they are wide, maybe 2 1/2 feet. Seemed a bit odd until I thought about it. After the last storm, plows removed the snow from the roads which left a thick gleaming coat of ice. I've seen a few trucks in the ditches - well, they would have been if the ditches weren't piled high w/ snow. However, they were all very stuck. Figured their drivers thought 4-wheel drive would keep them out of trouble but they had obviously spun out of control on the ice. All of the trucks had open back ends. With the logs, Mike was putting weight over his truck's back wheels making his vehicle more stable if a little less gas efficient. A reasonable trade-off I thought though I sure wouldn't want to be the guy who got those ash logs up in the truck bed.