Traditionally the hewing took place in the off season, mainly in the winter months, a season when the focus on farm life began to slow down, and you began to look ahead --firewood, which needed to be harvested 1 year ahead to allow for curing was high on the agenda, at the same time harvesting logs needed for a future building, both for squaring and lumber needs went hand in hand with firewood harvesting--and don't forget clearing the land was ongoing for 2 or 3 generations
The cool weather made hewing easier, and the frosty wood yielded easily under the steady blows of the chopping and hewing axe(s), already stressed by freezing temperatures
Trying to reconstruct some of these old processes in really warm temperatures is challenging to say the least, and virtually impossible for many reasons
