Northeast Iowa here... specifically, 30 miles south of the Minnesota border, about 60 west of Wisconsin. We normally don't even close the windows until the last week of September or first of October, but we closed all but one last night (and they're still closed). Predictions are for 30° by Saturday morning, which will kill what's left of the garden (the earliest I can remember). We usually light the first fire during the last week of October... last year it was mid-October... and unless the weather straightens out in the next week or so, I'm not so sure we won't fire-up before October this year.
I always try to hold off as long as possible... 'cause once ya' fire-up it pretty much means you're gonna' be burning every other night or so (the body and mind just likes that wood heat). I don't "look forward" to firing-up, it's just more work to me; load the box, clean out the ashes... and the worst part, cutting more wood to replace what's burned. I burn wood-for-heat simply because I have easy accesses to the wood (basically my back yard) and it saves me money. If I had to scrounge or drive for firewood... I likely wouldn't do it. Between helpin' granddad and dad as a kid, and burnin' since then, I've been burnin' wood-for-heat ( in some form or another) gettin' close to 50 years now... the novelty is gone.
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