Kindling:

 Cutting up kindling is tricky at best and the new wood stove we  have is more suited to the size of  our home.  Trying to balance a piece of wood on end seemed to me to be dangerous. Our new wood stove requires using small pieces of kindling and progressively going larger until we get to log size. 

We bought a kindling splitter and it does wonders in making kindling. We cut all the kindling we will need for a couple months in about 1 1/2 hours. And my hands never came anywhere near the sharp hatchet and in fact  use a hand maul. Best investment ever.