Yesterday afternoon I chopped some kindling for our log-burner with my hand-axe as I was too lazy to fetch the tractor and log-splitter from the shed. As I was wielding the hatchet, I remembered to hold the log with a small stick and remembered an old farmworker, who showed me many years ago how to save fingers…

There’s something quite therapeutic,
Chopping kindling with a small axe,
So long as you remember your fingers,
They don’t care for bladed attacks!

On a farm when I was not twenty,
If working near a wood with a gang,
First thing Old Frank would chop firewood,
“We need to keep warm if we can!”

He’d cut a small stick as ‘a holder’,
To safely hold the wood (always planned!),
Then down would crash the billhook,
And his fingers would remain on his hand!

Wednesday Safety Alert: Be careful out there if using an axe today.

© Baldock Bard 2017
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