I am getting too old for this

I fiddled around with peeling the bark off. I read where settlers used to harvest the bark from Ash trees to use as shingles. It appears to be entirely feasible for hybrid poplar trees as well. I used a billhook to pry the bark off the freshly cut rounds.

First I worked a line of hits across the top of the round. Then I inserted a wedge and started driving it in.

A second wedge was added when a distinct fracture plane presented itself.

Then I did my imitation of a gandy dancer. Left, right, left, right....

The halves split much more easily than the full round. I did not even need to invoke the wedges. The reason you see one is because I was too lazy to retrieve it before splitting the halves.

You know, I might be on to something if I could come up with square tree trunks. Think of how efficiently they could be turned into lumber.

If I can manage six of these a day it will only take me three days to get them knocked out.