Paul Bunyan I'm not

It's officially fall and the morning air is crisp and fresh.  Darkness is settling in earlier and earlier.  Thoughts of winter days spent nestled by the fire are already calling to me.

Fires require firewood.  uh-oh.  That's a problem.  Two days ago our firewood was still in big chunks where we dropped three willow trees a few months ago.  After careful consideration I decided to scoff at the idea that moving and chopping firewood was a mans job.  I spent yesterday moving the wood from the south end of the south field to the slab by the barn.  A fairly short, but uphill trek.  Today I moved another stash of wood from the east edge of the property and decided to start chopping.  I am woman, hear me roar!

I picked up the ax that Peter uses.  It's this huge wedge attached to a metal handle and weighs about 45 pounds.  I needed two hands to lift it just to the height of my target wood.  With great effort I hefted the thing up and let it drop with a thud.  It barely dented my log.  Swinging it was out of the question. It became quite obvious that this wasn't going to work so well for me.  I hate to admit it but I needed a lighter weight ax.  I may as well have plastered "I'm just a girl" on my forehead.  Sigh..

Quite sad, but still determined, I searched through the barn and finally came up with a regular ax.  One with a wooden handle that I could at least pick up and swing.  So pick up and swing I did.

A lot.

After a gazillion swings that landed in random places on my log I FINALLY got the thing to crack.  Woot!  Hear me roar!  I can do it. Yes I can.

Another gazillion swings and I had this log split into about 6 pieces.  Perfect for the fireplace.  Perfect for a winter's day for about 2 hours of heat.  I took my victory and ran with it and about 2 hours later I had this little stack of split wood:

As I worked my aim and technique got better, then it got worse.  The ax got progressively heavier and my muscles began to scream at me.  I managed to split enough wood to heat our house for about a week.  Tomorrow I'll add to it - assuming I can move.  Right now the palms of my hands ache as the blisters form, my arms are quietly sobbing at the effort to type.  Tomorrow is not looking so promising - but who knows - I am woman and might just have more roar in me.