#sheaaxe

Recently, our friends at United By Blue asked us to design the markings for one of their new Made In America axes.  The answer was a resounding YES!  

With so many beautiful colors to choose from, we immediately began looking through photos from our adventures for inspiration.  Would the axe reflect the jagged mountains at Sawtooth Lake, or the Grand Canyon during a rain storm?  We finally chose one of our favorite photos from a BLM camping spot in Idaho where the sky just before sunrise looked a deep blue, the van and stars pure white, and the buttes beyond a dark brown.

I had never swung a full-sized axe before, only using our small hatchet and a mallet to split wood throughout the journey.  Brendan has taught me to swing the Shea Axe (he graciously allowed it to be named after me!), its weight empowering in my hands.

We get outside twice-a-day to split wood for our little wood stove.  Sometimes it takes me upwards of six swings to successfully split the log in two.  Sometimes I miss the target altogether.  More often than not, the axe gets stuck about half-way through and I awkwardly half-fall over trying to kick it out with my foot.  I hope that only the birds are watching, though sometimes Brendan catches me in a not-so-graceful moment.

But no matter how many tries it takes to split a single log, it’s an activity that makes you feel alive and self-sufficient and competent.  It gets you outside on cold days and proverbially warms you twice.