Product Review Monday

Have you ever thought what it would be like to live like the Amish? I don’t mean just being off-grid or giving up a car; I mean really living like (and with) the Amish?

One man, Eric Brende, and his newlywed wife Mary, did just that … and wrote about it. They lived for 18 months with a religious group that goes even beyond the Amish in terms of technology (or the lack thereof). Brende’s story is called “Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology” and it’s an extraordinary read.

I will quote the Amazon blurb:

What is the least we need to achieve the most? With this question in mind, MIT graduate Eric Brende flipped the switch on technology. He and his wife, Mary, ditched their car, electric stove, refrigerator, running water, and everything else motorized or “hooked to the grid,” and spent eighteen months living in a remote community so primitive in its technology that even the Amish consider it antiquated.

Better Off is the story of their real-life experiment to see whether our cell phones, wide-screen TVs, and SUVs have made life easier – or whether life would be preferable without them. This smart, funny, and enlightening book mingles scientific analysis with the human story to demonstrate how a world free of technological excess can shrink stress – and waistlines – and expand happiness, health, and leisure.

This – book – is – incredible. I have read it and re-read and re-read it yet again, numerous times. If you’re curious what living with an Amish-like group is like, this is the book to find out.

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For our non-book product, I’d like to recommend something I’ve mentioned before: A manual hydraulic log splitter.

While we’re extremely satisfied with our gas-powered log splitter, a concern we’ve always had at the back of our mind is how we would split wood if gas wasn’t available. There seemed to be no other option except the trusty maul and wedge, a prospect that holds less and less appeal as we get older. (For those who think splitting firewood is easy, keep in mind hardwoods such as oak or maple split very easily; softwood conifers, which dominate Idaho, do not.)

So when we found this manual hydraulic log splitter, we knew we’d found the missing link between splitting by hand and splitting with a gas engine, and immediately ordered one. It has performed exceptionally well.

A manual hydraulic splitter is just a bottle jack in a horizontal position, with two levers for applying the hydraulics. Its only limitation is with very large rounds, which are beyond its capacity. Of course it’s not as fast as a gas-powered splitter, but it has the compensating virtues of being much, much quieter. 

The splitter weighs about 80 lbs. and is easily transported on a hand truck.

The gas-powered log splitter is still a better choice for large quantities of wood and/or huge rounds; but having a manual hydraulic splitter is a superb backup, especially for those of us who depend on wood heat.

(Obligatory disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Affiliate, if you purchase through those links, we earn a small commission.)

Source: http://www.rural-revolution.com/2025/05/product-review-monday_19.html