Well its that time of the year again when it starts cooling down and a fire is mandatory to keep the shivers and dampness from taking you. This year, due to my broken foot, the little lady has to wheelbarrow the firewood from where it is stacked to the firewood storage box on the side of the house, and load the box. She can handle that chore but I feel guilty watching her through the window, as cutting, splitting, stacking and supplying firewood to the house is my responsibility. That is how the division of labor is organized here at our Shang Ri La in the middle of nowhere. However, this is as far as I am willing to bend. I am the one who builds and maintains the fire due to the fact that if left to the discretion of a woman, your woodstove will consume at least twice the wood that the man of the house will use, as no woman on the face of the planet is capable of realizing just how much back breaking work it takes to produce said firewood ! She will run the house temp up to a sweltering 80 degrees while turning the stovepipe cherry red and stoking that old woodstove like a fireman on a steam locomotive, and think nothing of it. Unlike me, she has no appreciation of how valuable each and every piece of firewood is because she has not made the mental connection to it which is caused by the sweat and labor you invested in obtaining the stuff. Fall and cool weather has just begun and if I don't watch the firewood supply and disipline my wife accordingly, it will be gone by February!Tongue in cheek,
Toepopper
