Brrr!

So much for the weather predictions. We woke up this morning to around three inches of snow, with icy roads that, while they had been plowed, had not been sanded. It took me half again as long to get to work. And it stayed cold and windy. Probably normal for this time of the year, but a rude awakening after the mild spell we'd experienced until now.

I had a chance to test a couple of bits of wood splitting advice I got earlier in the season. One from the Internet said to use a six-pound maul rather than an eight. Easier on the body and better speed. The second was from Alan, who said that the best time to split wood was when the temperature was staying below freezing, which certainly described today.

Well, my new six-pound maul (from the local hardware store--the big-box guys only had eight-pound) and I gave it a go, and boy did it work! Pieces of hardwood from four to six inches in diameter and sixteen inches long yielded to a single blow. As Alan predicted, it made me feel like a king. And burning the wood gave me, shall we say, a warm cozy feeling.