Splitting wood

From here, Apr 2019

It's been 15 months since we had our mature sycamore tree cut down.  The arborists cut it into manageable sized pieces--even the branches, sticks and twigs.  All of these have been stacked in piles since, drying out.  Over the winter, we burned most of the twigs and smallest sticks as kindling but left the rest;  even the small-medium sticks were too green to burn still.  The largest sticks, branches and logs have been stacked together on the driveway next to the garage wall the whole time, until this week when the husband and I began splitting and restacking them inside the garage.

We don't have an axe or hatchet;  we're splitting with a mallet and improvised wedge--and we're going slow!  I admit, the husband has done most of it;  the mallet is too heavy for my wrist, so I can't really do much at once (I tried a hammer, but it's even less efficient).  We have a bit more than a full cord of wood to get through, but luckily it's only April.

We still have a pile of sticks and twigs (the last of the sycamore plus some new additions from other garden prunings this spring).  The medium sized sticks which are too small to split easily will go in that pile;  they should be dry enough to burn by winter.  I hope the split wood will also be dry enough to burn then too.

To here (I made the kindling basket), Apr 2019