two branches homestead

Years ago when I was a kid, my parents installed a wood stove in our house.  We always had a fireplace but this was just a bit different. For one, it actually heated the house.  I’m sure it offset our heating bill in some way, but I was too young to care about that.  What I cared about was all the wood.  My dad would bring it home in the trunk of his car or we would have some logs dumped on the lawn if they were trimming trees in the area.  From the first strike of the sledge hammer onto the wedge I was hooked.  There was something about splitting wood that called to me.  Even when we were at my grandmother’s house in the country for the summer, I would look for opportunities to split wood.

When I finally bought my own home I knew I wanted to…