I'm afraid there will be no burning of this particular massive bole. It's been dead for so long that it's already 50% compost. I'll probably just cut what parts of it are still more or less solid into manageable chunks, pile them up someplace out of the way, and let Mom's cousin, Mother Nature, finish the job of turning them into future garden soil.

I'll sorta miss the old eyesore since it was a favorite hunting ground for our resident red-bellied woodpeckers and I could watch them from the window beside my computer. Earlier this spring I also noticed that a couple of beetle-killed pines 100 yard or so away from the house had fallen down at some point. They were occasional perches for various hawks and kites, so they'll be missed a bit as well.