How-to: Chopping Wood in the Sun

I love chopping wood!

LastDFer: Do it in the friggin' spring/summer/fall by hand buddy! Slower than hydraulic to be sure, but what a great workout.

peter: If you really want to become enlightened, buy a hydraulic wood splitter. This comes from a person who heats their home primarily with wood in Canada's far north. However, if you run out of wood to split, boy do I have a job for you. I have found that it's easiest to split wood when the temperature is minus 10 degrees or colder, - even those logs that are full of twisted knots. At that temperature, the logs break like glass. However, at this temperature you might not want to expose your skin to the sun. Splitting wood is definately a science since you need to look at the grain of the wood to see where it would be most easily split. I'm glad you're enjoying this great exercise regime peter. You'll definately reap the benefits during the winter.

to drLove: Actually, it's best to chop wood and stack the pieces for seasoning at least one year before burning the pieces. So, for example, wood you split in, say, September of this year would not be burned until winter of 2008.

to drLove: Well said. Chopping wood is not for everyone. There is a bit of strength requirement in it. And moreover, city-dwellers are often prohibited from operating wood burning fireplaces in their homes (for pollution reasons). That narrows the field even more. So the 5 stars rating I gave was for rural dwellers of sufficent strength. For us folks, this practice is close to holy.

Splitting wood must also be done in the winter time for us northern folk who are snowed in for 6 months of the year and depend on wood to heat our homes!!

I found it really difficult to rate this recipe. One one hand, I never chop/split wood since it's not for me. (It takes a lot of strength to do it so my husband does it). So for this reason, I'd rate it a 1. However, like doing dishes, folding laundry or weeding a garden, I would think chopping wood in the sun would be very meditative. In this instance, I would rate it a 3. But where I would rate this recipe as a 5, is because of the famous quote it is associated with. It is the notion that chopping wood is something you do before and after enlightenment. For me, that means choosing to live our daily lives with intent, discipline and routine, - and this is just as beautiful and important as experiences of enlightenment. So I thought I'd average out my ratings.