What's In Your Head

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CatfishHunter

Member
Dec 8, 2020
98
Minnesota
When you are splitting wood, what is in your head? Are you listening to music, listening to the sound of the blade going through the wood, or letting the sounds of nature fill your head?

I'm 50/50 on either listening to nature, or bringing out my phone and playing old blues. I love the blues to begin with but it seems like mood music when splitting wood.
 
I'm not able to listen to nature because of the sound of the splitter :) But while I'm splitting and cutting I'm either running songs through my head (earworms), old commercial jingles and TV show themes (Throw it on the lawn, turn the water on, and then you run-run-run and sliiiiiidee in on your tum! Sliiiiiip, slip and slide! Sliiiiip, slip and slide! Dumb stuff like that), or thinking through whatever stress is on me for the day. Chewing on a problem while wood processing or weedeating is one of the greatest ways I know of killing stress.
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Years ago I would say a few bad words, flowed by the ex-wife's name, then slam the maul into the oak. Repeat as needed.

Now I just listen to the splitter hum through my earplugs.
 
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Log on splits off repeat
 
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I think about all the other things I need to do, once the wood is split and stacked.
 
Usually I am completely zoned out to the world and basically just mentally relaxed while hand splitting. My mind is normally moving a mile a minute but splitting wood honestly is one of the few things that can relax my mind and make me concentrate solely on the process.
 
I kinda do a mix of things.. I listen to music, think about the wood I splitting, alot of time I think about work and solving problems and making things better for my company. I also do wood with my son so we get bonding time. Occasionally I have a beer.
 
I think about hundreds of things, nothing specific. Music, will have to do that as I’m off the next 2 weeks and it’s time to get after some of the blow downs from the summer. Phone/headphones, check!
 
I'm focused on hitting the log in the center, enjoying the grain and smell of the wood. It's a time I'm totally in the present, nothing else in my mind, and it's safer that way.
 
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Beer and rock music.
 
I'm in the camp of I think of nothing, splitting relaxes me and helps me clear my head out, other then the work involved it a total unwind time for me.
 
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Lift the s*cker on the block, whack (whack, whack) in half, reposition, whack in half. Other half, whack. Throw four splits in the pile. Lift the s*cker... Etc.

And for big rounds, lift, groan, whack a side off, whack a big slice off, whack the slice in half, etc.

So, nothing in my head. Axe in my hand. Beer nearby. And my phone to every now and then check new posts on hearth.com...