you really need to keep that wood wrapped so it dries slowly. ELse it will keep cracking.
I know this is an old comment, but dried quickly or slowly, any piece of wood with the pith still in it will crack, and usually crack hard. Putting wood in bags, storing them in sawdust, and so forth, these can help a little, but mostly, these are old wives' tales. The problem isn’t the speed of drying; it’s that when wood dries, its shape fundamentally changes. If you retain the pith or keep the piece as a solid log, it will pull radially with extreme force, and that will cause a fault line failure at one or many points, as it rips itself apart. To avoid cracking, you need to release the tension before you dry the wood. If you want to work with a solid log, pith and all, you have to live with cracks. If you manage to dry a log without obvious cracking, it probably has something much more sinister lurking inside: honeycomb fractures.
When we mill blanks for woodturning from logs, we split the log into three parts, the two sides and the midsection, cutting out the pith. Usually, we can get two nice bowl blanks and two usable boards out of the midsection if we make a couple more cuts. Cutting the log in this way dramatically reduces cracking, as when the wood dries and shrinks, there is much less tension. The wood has somewhere to move to, and doesn't tear itself to pieces. This is why furniture-grade logs milled for boards are cut to avoid the pith, and why the cheapest junk wood (fence posts, pickets, etc) at the hardware store is always full of pith - it's either the worst part of the log, or the trees are so small that avoiding the pith wouldn't yield the desired size.
Here's an example of the typical cutlines to make blanks that will dry with minimal cracking:
PS: rapidly drying small chunks of wood in a microwave is an easy and effective way to dry wood as a hobbyist. As long as you can fit the chunk of wood in the microwave, of course. For bonsai-related woodworking, that’s probably not too hard a requirement. You can microwave a small block of wood in about a day, taking multiple, short zaps (30-120 seconds, depending on the size and how wet it is), and waiting 30-60 minutes between each run. Larger pieces can be dried over a few days. It's best to start this process immediately after the tree has been cut down. If it's left to air dry for a year or two first, you've likely already introduced serious cracking. Here in Colorado, logs will develop massive cracks even if you seal the end grain and attempt to air dry them in the traditional ways, in as little as 3-6 months. I have some willow oak that I've been too lazy/busy to deal with (only sealed the end grain, but haven't cut out the pith) that has nearly split itself in half after roughly a year.
Microwaving will kill any bugs living inside as well. If you're air drying, you should plan for a kiln sterilization pass to deal with wood boring insects before you mill the wood, or if that isn't feasible, a chemical treatment (Tim-Bor or whatever you have in your area).
lots of change in my life as of late. Got married 
and although its nice we moved in to a small apartment, and I got a new job so as of now theres no where I can actually work on one. Also canada is getting cold now. But hopefully next year ill be able to get a house and start on my second one!
