My spouse was insisting he had to get outside and do a chore, but it had been snowing so much for days.
He wanted to chop wood so we’d have it for the fireplace.
Ever since the price of heating fuel hit $7 a gallon, we’d been using the fireplace as our primary source of heating. When we kept the doors open in the cottage, it worked great. We had so much aging wood down because of storms over the last three years, so we didn’t need to buy wood. My spouse said it was free fuel, and it didn’t use electricity, so we’d use what we were offered. With it snowing as hard as it was, and being freezing, we were using lots of wood. We had gone through twice as much as we thought we would, and my spouse and I ended up with an empty wood bin. But, unless it stops snowing soon, we wouldn’t have heat much longer. After days of constant snow, it dawned bright and sunny one morning. My spouse wore his heavy overcoat and headed out to get wood. It took nearly all afternoon, but we had enough wood in the woodshed and on the porch to last us the rest of the Winter, even if we got snowed in. I don’t know what we’d do without the fireplace, because the price of fuel was too much for us to afford. Not only did the fireplace keep our cottage warm and cozy, but it also offered us a night light when we got up in the middle of the night. We love that we get two uses from it.