Splitting wood is good for the soul

We have three fireplaces in our home. One of them was converted to a gas log a couple of years ago. The one in the basement, we were told to never use by a chimney inspector. Our third fireplace is in a place we call the "Back Room." It is where we spend the majority of our time and we burn a lot of wood in it. We were seriously contemplating changing that fireplace to gas as well after this year.

From Wood 20 Nov 2011

And then we had a limb fall in our backyard. I broke out my chainsaw and using a coworker's maul, I split the limb. I split close to a face cord of wood from that limb, so we will have wood for the 2012-2013 fall and winter.

From Wood 20 Nov 2011

We also have seven oak trees. Large, old growth oak trees. We had them trimmed about 5 years ago and they needed to be trimmed again. I asked the tree trimmer to leave any limbs larger than 6 inches in diameter behind so I could split it and burn it. I had no idea that there would be so much wood.

From Wood 20 Nov 2011

I started splitting the wood on Saturday morning. I split wood for about an hour and a half, and I still had a lot of wood to split.

From Wood 20 Nov 2011

I was out there again for about an hour this morning splitting more wood. I still have split about 60% of the wood. I will get at it again over the Thanksgiving weekend.

From Wood 20 Nov 2011

Splitting wood is what Deirdre calls "hot dirty man-work." It is manual labor at its finest and you do get hot and dirty doing it. However, it is very fulfilling because after an hour or so of hard work, you have something to show for it. For me, it is very therapeutic. It is good for my soul.

From Wood 20 Nov 2011

And it is also a good reason to have some quality outdoor time with Samson the Dog. He enjoyed supervising me as I split and stacked the wood.

From Wood 20 Nov 2011

Yep, splitting wood is good for one's soul.