My wife kept telling me she had to get outside and do something.
However, it had been snowing for several nights straight.
She wanted to split wood so we would have it for the fireplace. Ever since the price of heating fuel hit $7 a gallon, we have been using the fireplace as our sole source of heating. We kept the doors open in the house, it worked appealingly. My wife and I had lots of trees down because of storms over the last several years, so we didn’t need to buy wood. She said it was free fuel, and it didn’t use electricity, so we should use what we have. With it snowing as hard as it was, and being many degrees below normal, we were using a lot of the wood. My wife and I had gone through twice as much wood as we thought we would, and we ended up with an empty wood bin. Unless it stops snowing soon, we wouldn’t have heat much longer. After several nights of constant snow, it dawned bright and sunny one morning. She donned her heavy sweaters and headed out to get wood. It took nearly all day, however we had enough wood in the woodshed and on the porch to last us the rest of the winter, even when we got snowed in. I don’t know what we would do if we didn’t have the fireplace, because the price of fuel was too much for us to afford. Not only did the fireplace keep our home warm and cozy, but it also gave us a night light when we got up in the middle of the night. No one complains when something has a double duty.