It’s therapeutic [splitting logs]. And it’s not a very complex job. Routine, really, but not boring. So many things that happen in our everyday lives bother us and cloud our day. Often, if I’ve been to a meeting and gotten worked up about something or other, I might go around thinking of all the things I should have said. But then, when I’m standing by the chopping block, I don’t think about any of it anymore. My mind is never so pleasantly empty as it is when I’m chopping wood.

  —Arne Fjeld, a “small farmer”
   in Nordskogbygda, Norway