Cutting firewood can be back-breaking work. And when you’re far out in the woods and your chain saw gives you trouble, you risk coming home with much less wood than you’d planned. After a couple of really sore-back days and one drive home with a very small load, I adopted a new plan: bring back four-foot logs when possible and cut them up into 16-inch firewood logs at home. Out in the woods, this technique drastically lowered both the amount of time spent bending down to cut and also the time the chain saw was running. It was mostly a big win. Except that it just spread out the back-breaking bending over (our wood stove insists on 16-inchers). We did like being able to get a load of wood faster, and I eventually figured out a method at home that’s pretty easy on my back.

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