I've started splitting firewood this morning.

I've started splitting firewood in the morning

Lately, I’ve been splitting firewood starting around 5:30 a.m.

If the firewood I’m splitting now dries out properly, I plan to use it in my wood-burning stove as early as December of this year.

The wood is oak and cherry.

The oak was felled as part of mountain maintenance. It’s not enough to simply leave the mountains untouched; it’s important to properly harvest old trees to create an environment where new ones can grow. Doing so helps maintain the mountain’s soil stability and fosters a healthy forest.

As for the cherry wood, we’re using trees that were snapped by this year’s heavy snowfall. The cherry trees that bloomed so beautifully this spring will now, in winter, warm us and our guests as firewood in our wood-burning stove. It’s a moment that makes you feel the cycle of nature.

Until last year, we used to split firewood in the evenings after work. But there are so many bugs out at that time of day, and before we knew it, we’d end up in a battle with mosquitoes (laughs).

So this year, we’ve switched to splitting wood in the morning.

The air is crisp in the morning, and it feels wonderful. Watching the sun rise slowly and moving my body while listening to the birds sing makes for a great start to the day.

Once I’m done splitting the firewood, I stack it in the woodpile.

It’s not just a matter of piling them up—I have to stack them so they don’t collapse and so the heights are as uniform as possible, which actually takes more thought than you’d expect. As I compare logs of different shapes and sizes, thinking, “Should this one go here?” or “Would this fit better over there?”, it feels just like playing Tetris.

I used to play Tetris a lot on my Game Boy back in the day.

As I was stacking the firewood, those nostalgic memories suddenly came flooding back.

Splitting firewood is by no means an easy task, but perhaps the reason I never get tired of it is because of these little joys.

We often hear from our guests, “The wood-burning stove was wonderful.”

That warmth isn’t something you can prepare for suddenly once it gets cold. Starting in the heat of summer, I split, stack, and dry the firewood little by little to prepare for winter. That steady effort leads to those cozy winter moments.

Looking forward to welcoming our guests with the warmth of this firewood again this winter, I plan to keep splitting firewood in the mornings for a while longer.