I love to split wood.

One of my all-time favorite homestead activities is splitting wood. I LOVE splitting wood. There’s just something about it that quiets my mind. It’s just me vs. the wood. Sometimes the woods win but most of the time I do. I’d rather sit and split wood than anything else. I suppose it’s the same reason that people like golf or baseball. Just you and the ball. Even with littles running around, chaos, there’s a silence in swinging that maul hoping for that feeling. That homerun crack of the bat when the maul goes right through and hits the chopping block. Who needs meditation?

We didn’t havea woodstove yet during the Summer. We had one for years then not for a few years and I'm so glad to have one again. And so without a stove, we didn't think to cut wood all Spring and Summer. So now we’re playing catch up. And with it getting dark long before Clay gets home it’s my job to split wood. On Saturday Clay cuts all the rounds (we have dead seasoned trees everywhere due to the Tornado last year) and then splits the big rounds in half for me. Yeah he splits the big rounds. I’m strong but man sometimes it takes me over 20 minutes, hitting those big rounds 50 times, to split them in two. Of course once they’re done the rest is cake. He does that cause he loves me. Here's my pile for the week. Smaller than normal. Maybe we'll cut a few rounds tomorrow before the Christmas party.
Frankie’s my wood stacker. He’s a rockin wood stacker. He goes out with me everyday and stacks. We compete to see who can get ahead. If he works hard, he wins and he gets to sit around while slow splitter Mom splits wood. If he’s in a lazy mood, he ends up with a big stack at the end to stack. He hates that. I think he’s finally starting to SEE that relationship for himself. Nice. Clay bought him a boy’s axe not too long ago and is teaching him to split wood. Me? I don’t let him do it. Only when Clay’s supervising. I’m a big chicken.

This is Frankie's "by the house stack". Looks good eh? Yeah he's my partner.

Okay off to load the stove and go to bed.