The silver maple in the back of my yard has along history, and has required some TLC over the years. Recently I had to have one of the side limbs on the back trunk removed, largely because it had become home to a family of critters. You could tell from the outside of the 14″ ∅ trunk that the branch was under stress. So I got a local arborist company, Elite Tree Care, in to remove it. The extent of the hole inside the branch was quite incredible, likely a combination of rot, and animal activity. Below is a picture of the lopped limb – notice the nice spalting effect, and how close the decay was to reaching the edge of the tree. The hole takes up 30% of the log cross-section. I saved a couple of small pieces to serve as axe blocks for carving. The rest went off to become firewood I imagine.
working by hand 