Chop Your Own Firewood

Among many other notable things, Henry Ford once said, ‘chop your own wood and it will warm you twice.’

I don’t think it’s hard to understand what he probably meant by this. On the surface, it’s pretty simple: chop the firewood once, and you’ll be warm as you do it. It’s good exercise and difficult work (at least after the first several swings). The second warming phase begins when it’s burning in the fireplace or woodstove. Wood burns, it gives off heat. Voila!

But I prefer to think there’s a bit more to this (or at least I choose to make a bit more out of it). From this simple task of splitting firewood, I’ve been able to derive satisfaction, some new skills and knowledge, and the pure enjoyment of a therapeutic effort that pays off with a few benefits.

Chopping the wood is great exercise, yes. I enjoy it greatly myself and have for several years (our home has a fireplace in it). We’ve ordered a cord of birch firewood every year for the last several seasons, and I truly enjoy the act of going out in the yard to split the larger pieces as we burn through the pile all winter to add some extra warmth and winter coziness to our beloved mid-century home.

I suppose, as a man who likes things that many other men like (tools, wood, fire, sharp things, the occasional cigar, hitting things with other heavy or sharp things) I get some enjoyment out of some physical exercise in the yard, in among the trees and wood chips, swinging my trusty axe. I also get to take my special wood tote bag out in the yard to bring back some firewood that I know is going to provide heat and wonderful smells in and around the house while we enjoy a nice fire in the living room. I enjoy having a special (yet simple and effective) piece of kit like this for a specific purpose. It was a gift from my mother-in-law, and an especially good one.

I also get a sense of woodsy (OK, woodsy suburban) satisfaction from this I get to briefly pretend I’m living out in the woods, chopping wood for the fireplace to keep my family warm in the snowbound wilderness in the mountains I think of escaping to so often. I also get the tremendous dad satisfaction of occasionally wearing one of my Dad’s old cowboy hats out in the yard while I’m doing this, purely to embarrass my 15-year-old daughter. This doesn’t make me any warmer, but I sure find it funny (and yes, it embarrasses her when I do this).

But sometimes the wood warms me more than twice. Once a year, when a load of wood is dumped in the driveway, it’s a lot of additional work to carry and stack it in the two places we typically store it. About half of it goes in the garage; the rest goes out into the yard in between two large trees, where it makes a great little photogenic stack of firewood that my family likes to pose in front of for some cute woodsy family photos.

I also found some additional warmth as self-satisfaction when I built a little wood-splitting table to put out in the yard. Why would someone do this, when a large tree stump or log does the job nicely? Well, because those () aren’t always so easy to come by when you’re not cutting down a large tree. I couldn’t easily buy or find one, so after getting some help with a design from a clever fellow at the local Home Depot, I set about making one, which I’ve used since, with reasonable success. It’s never going to be mistaken for a fine piece of furniture, or something built by a master craftsman (it definitely wasn’t) but it works well and it’s still as solid as the day I finished building it. I learned while doing it, and I got to use some more tools. It was a win.

Finally, there’s also the satisfaction of taking care of the tools I used to manage this little ritual; I bought some honing oil and a good whetstone, which I use to periodically sharpen and protect the axe for the best possible performance when called upon to split the firewood. I find a pleasant parallel in this; regularly sharpening and maintaining the axe helps to ensure better performance when it’s needed to do some important work, which to me makes the experience of doing so more meaningful — not unlike regular exercise, reading, learning, or practising something one wants to improve at. Stephen R. Covey refers to this as ‘sharpening the saw’. In my case it’s a 27" Fiskars splitting axe.

All of this makes me feel more self-reliant, stronger, a bit more relaxed, and closer to nature.

I like that.