We've lived in this town since 1993, and in those 17 years I've hauled what feels like an infinite amount of firewood--as freshly felled logs into the truck, as split wood into the woodshed, as fuel into the woodbox, and then log by log into the stove. I've spelled Tom at the gas-powered wood splitter we've periodically had to borrow or rent. But I haven't picked up the splitting maul and done the deed by hand.

Here in Harmony, serious wood work is by and large a man's job; but wood-handling women are not unknown. Our fire chief's daughters, for instance, are famously good with chainsaws. And plenty of my semi-hippie friends have, at least in their enthusiastic twenties and thirties, prided themselves on their ax-handling skills. I suspect, however, that novice 46-year-old female wood splitters are not so common. It's work that requires a fair amount of upper-body strength, which is not, on the whole, a middle-aged woman's best attribute.

But I do a lot of water hauling and a lot of grass cutting with a non-self-propelled mower, and each spring I dig my entire garden by hand; so I've been thinking, as I've watched Tom struggle to work full time and keep up with the firewood chore, and as I've watched my willing but not quite competent 16-year-old son get nowhere with the ax, that I really have no excuse to rest on my feminine laurels. When it comes to chainsaws or oil changes, I'm quite willing to continue resting on them. But I ought to be able to swing a splitting maul.

So yesterday afternoon, when no one was looking, I diffidently picked up the maul, arranged a smallish ash log on the raggedy giant maple log Tom has been using as his splitting base, and, with great self-consciousness, swung up the maul and let it drop.

It thunked weakly into the ash log, which then bounced off the giant maple log and rolled away.

This happened about 20 more times.

Then, finally, I managed to combine a vigorous-enough swing with a semblance of aim, and the ash log ripped cleanly down the middle. The sound and sight of that split was an amazing gratification. I could hardly believe I'd managed to do it, but I did split that log, and I split more logs after it, again and again for an hour, until I was surrounded by a messy pile of real, honest-to-god, stackable firewood.

I suppose this may not sound like a very thrilling accomplishment; but I live in a state where it's winter for most of the year, and firewood anxiety can run rife in a household that depends entirely on wood for heat. Remember, too, that I am the lone female in a family of boys. And I sunburn easily, sleep badly in a tent, like to wear dresses and high heels, always hide my eyes at the scary parts in movies, and generally behave like a girl. So even though this morning my right arm does kind of feel like rubber, I'm still amazed at myself, and also proud. Yesterday I split enough firewood to beat the cold away from my door, at least for a few days. This afternoon I might trudge out into the sleet and split a little more.