No wonder they call it hardwood

 I started the day by spending a few minutes in the workshop.  I unclamped the second cupboard door, and then tidied up a little. The doors look great and I carried out a trial fit in the cupboard aperture.  They will need a little planing, but the fit will be perfect.

I then joined 30% out on the drive and we continued shifting the wood chippings up to the orchard.  Barrow after barrow was wheeled up there, and dumped on the growing pile.  As the morning wore on, a plank was employed to make it easier to empty my barrow on the top of the pile.

We had hoped to finish moving the pile before lunch, but, by half past twelve, we had both run out of steam, and we stopped to rest and eat.  Thirty minutes later, we were back out there, and it took another forty five minutes to finish the job and tidy up

We then retired indoors and had a well deserved siesta.

On waking, I headed out to the huge pile of logs outside the garage, and reached for my splitting axe.  I selected a reasonable section of tree trunk, about twenty inches in diameter, and positioned it on a similarly sized piece of wood.  I took an experimental swing expecting the piece of wood to cleave in half.  I was disturbed to see that the splitting axe had barely made an impression of the section of trunk.

No wonder they call it hardwood!*

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* My last experience of splitting firewood, was the Douglas Fir that blew down as a result of Storm Darragh.  That was softwood and split easily.

Post Script:

After a few more attempts, I eventually found that smaller sections of trunk were easier to split, and they were certainly a lot easier to move around. This wet ash is bloody heavy and very hard. It is going to be a long, hard job to process this huge tree.

By the end of the day we had a reasonable heap of logs piled by Rose Cottage, ready to be stacked and left to dry.