Mark cut our gifted hickory log in half and then split it up into a full wheelbarrow-load of firewood.  Our movie-star neighbor told me that he'd cut down the tree just last week, but that it had been standing dead in the forest for a long time before that, so the wood was bone dry.  He wasn't kidding!  The hickory wood was good enough to act as kindling, but also held a flame well --- a great boon for our current cold spell.  (It's much snowier at the moment than in the photo above, which was taken Monday.)

We've had varying amounts of success with cutting dead trees and using the wood immediately, and I'm starting to understand the differences.  The oak we were cutting up a week or so ago had only been dead for a year and was reclining instead of standing vertically, both of which meant the wood is likely to stay wetter.  On the other hand, a standing dead tree that is starting to lose its bark is probably dry enough to cut and burn now.  Live and learn!  I've got my eye on an elm that perished over the summer not far from our core homestead, but it looks like that will be firewood insurance around 2016.