Maggie's Farm

I learned to split wood from trees cut on my own property (not extensive) as a 25-year-old ex-city boy. Unfortunately, I had cut down mostly elm trees that were unhealthy and near the house that first year. It really broke my spirit splitting that, and I wondered where, in the coming winters, I would find the strength without injuring my neck from the repeated jars. (I still have a bad neck, 30 years later.) It may have even been two humiliating years, scouring Mother Earth News and Yankee magazines hoping to find a better maul. I'd heard that frozen wood splits more easily, and so waited until January in hopes that the advantage would be enough to get by, and not shame the family line.

But that year was birch and ash, which split easily and cleanly with a good strike. Maple and oak weren't bad, either. I understand the part where that sound of a clean split can be tonic to a boy coming of age, standing next to his father and all that. But hearing that satisfying sound, after my discouragement and humiliation, in the face of not being able to afford to buy other, well...

I think it meant more to me than it did to them.

And oh, don't split thick elm by hand. Rent a splitter, or just hack off edges of it, or let it be and just dry it longer so it burns in the stove. But don't ever go at the miserable, twisty stuff without a plan.