Chopping wood, the old-fashioned way. There's something satisfying about the rhythm of splitting logs — a moment of calm strength in the garden. Working in the garden isn't always gentle or easy; sometimes it's pure physical effort.

Hout klieven op de ouderwetse manier. Er zit iets rustgevends in het ritme van het klieven — een moment van kalme kracht in de tuin. Werken in de tuin is niet altijd zacht of eenvoudig; soms is het gewoon stevig fysiek werk.

#woodsplitting
#houtklieven
#kliefhamer
#gardenwork
#tuinwerk
#rustiekerituelen
#outdoortools
#handwerk
#fysiekwerk
#dorgaldirsgarden

The weekend worked out nice! Two sunny days just after rainy season got started last week. I ended up getting caught up on the Ginkgo tree we been sawing and hauling during days off for the last couple weeks. The tree was downed 3(?) years ago but the trunk was covered with a lot of smaller branches and things. Luckily some people in the tree's neighborhood still have wood-heated Goemon baths: so the smaller branches ave all been taken away to heat bath water. You'd think the wood might be water-logged, rotted and not of much use. But I guess Ginkgo wood does not rot easily. Maybe that's why I've seen kitchen cutting boards made of Ginkgo Wood? There is a lot of moisture. Liquid comes out around the ax-head at first but I think it starts drying quickly once split. Ginkgo wood is not easy to split, but it's not an almost ridiculous amount of effort unless your working on the branching sections. It probably makes more sense to avoid some sections, but, for now I can look at it as exercise and think of it as an approach to local energy independence. All the places for keeping wood dry around the house are just about full now. But once you have a stove you tend to meet and talk with people that need wood. Helping each other out (I got axes, they got trucks..) feels like a nice approach to local energy independence: Keep as much money away from the Fossil Capital corporations as possible...
#WoodSplitting #GinkgoTree #GinkgoWood #薪割り #銀杏木 #銀杏

This kind of wood (犬薪？ 薪？ いぬまき？) is from some sort of pine-like, I think it's from the empty house down the road where the Kurogani Holly (クロガネモチ、 モチノキ) came from. These pine-like Maki trees are ornamental in a lot of Japanese style yards. And Invasive species of bug has been sucking out all their tree juices and kiling them for the last couple ears. I think this hung of wood is from one of the branches of a big tree that the bugs killed a year or so ago. The tree was still standing but day, maybe that makes the wood so hard to chop, it's more like ripping through the wood, even with small pieces. The surface is a nice color and shows beautiful designs. I'm trying to keep a couple of split-but-intact pieces around as objects for contemplation..
#WoodSplitting #薪割り #薪 #斧 #SplittingAx

Some beautiful red wood in this cinnamon tree. I feel bad not being ready to make something more lasting than firewood out of some of this.. The art teacher carved a head out of a big section of Magnolia last year but doesn't need a big chunk of cinammon this year. I should try to find the family that does workshops to make wooden spoons with all sorts of different woods, They had neat stuff on display at the Kagoshima Organic festival. One day I'll have to get set up for wood working. I wonder how cinnamon does on a lathe? Makiing one of those two-ringed rattles out of this wood would smell nice. The little parking area smells of cinnamon now. It is a lot of work to split. Usually I can put the ax in the middle of a section then work the split with the hammer, but this wood just bounce the ax right back up. You can't go right for the center you have to split off flat sections from the outside and work your way around: precision practice to split the long, narrow pieces later... At one point the read wood made me feel like I was dressing a wild boar or something with red meat. Maybe the color and my feeling fooled the Silky hen that came over to help for a bit too, but it's probably the same hen that recently got a newt and worm feast right near the ax..
#WoodSplitting #SplittingWood #CinnamonWood #薪割り #シナモンの木 #CinnamonWood #ニッケイの木 #肉桂の木

Years ago I got into splitting wood at a friends place. They have one of those old big iron pot Japanese baths, a Goemon-Buro. You need a nice fire under there to heat the water. People say a fire-heated bath warms the body better than other types of bath. An on-line search had me watching videos from Finland of a famous wood splitter. With the wood set inside two tires like this he could step around splitting with nice rhythm. This saves a lot of time.
#WoodSplitting #TwoTireWoodSplitting #薪割り

Finally got the two-tire wood-splitting rhythm set up. Involvement with some local community activities, a night-time free-school and a bi-weekly community cafeteria, got us hooked up with some lumber from a demolished house. Some people worry that wood should be dried for more than a year and a half, so all the wood I cut and split from may through August or September might not be quite good enough. But this house lumber has been working out fine. It feels like decent recycling, and people want it cleared out from the carport where it's been for about ten years... Hopefully they can wait for me to make a bunch of trips back and forth in my little K-car when I have time to take the chainsaw and get the longer pieces short enough to fit.. Working with the ax and hammer is nice, but the chainsaw requires cleaning and oil-check, it's just not as fun. Quite the time-saver though.

#WoodSplitting #WoodBurningStove

We've been in the process of getting a wood-burning stove (since Feb.) I hear the wood should all be harvested and chopped the winter before. The first year will just be learning I guess. It keeps me at home working out so might be good for nature and the body in some way. Gets me up clearing a grass roots group's orchard too. And I learn lessons: old wood is hard to split, always have an extra wedge. Do this before the summer heat and humidity. #WoodSplitting #Axe #Wedge #WoodBurningStove #薪割り