Don't listen to this noise; it fucking sucks, it's kinda dangerous, and it's not at all meditative. It's the exact opposite of meditative. My parents made me do it because they certainly didn't want to, because it sucks. I'm so glad I don't have to split firewood ever again.

If you're looking for a meditative exercise try yoga.

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klibertp 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Well, it's the kind of "meditative" you get when training martial arts forms. It gets good after a few years of preparation; before that, it's not as fun as spars and way less useful than general conditioning.

Coming from a kendo background, when I had to chop firewood for a few years while living in the countryside, I generally focused on accuracy. The swing is completely different than with a sword, and getting the chop to land at the exact spot (I drew lines with a marker) tens of times in a row was very satisfying, but required a lot of conscious effort to get there. It's not trivial to land a chop at the exact spot you want, and it's also quite hard to ensure the axe travels at its fastest exactly at the moment of impact.

It can be fun, but you need to be into things like that in the first place; plus, having to do it no matter the weather and all the other things you need to do can kill all the joy instantly.

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bee_rider 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It’s also astonishing how much wood needs to be split, to heat even a moderately sized house. Depends on the climate though, I guess.

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dredmorbius 9 hours ago | parent [-]

And the fireplace / stove.

Most open-hearth fireplaces are tremendously inefficient, not only sending most of the heat up the chimney, but drawing in additional cold air in doing so.

A masonry stove with an external air draw should be far more efficient, and burn much more cleanly to boot. The pollution factor from woodstoves is another major consideration, and means wood-burning is limited in many areas.

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dylan604 7 hours ago | parent [-]

My dad and his father built the house my family grew up in. The fireplace had two vents on either side of the fire box that drew air from the floor and vented near the ceiling. The ceiling fans in the room would circulate the air in the room. It was the only place I've spent time that a fireplace actually was useful.

	▲	bluGill 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		When those work well they're fine but be very careful. It's not uncommon of for smoke to go out what you think is the in intake and often those aren't correctly built as a chimney and so you can burn your house down.

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AaronAPU 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You sound like my father when someone mentions green beans