My wife is just the opposite… she won’t burn any more wood than is needed to keep the house around 70[sup]o[/sup], and has no problem letting the fire go out when it’s not needed. If I start the fire earlier in the evening than she believes it’s needed she calls it, “a waste of good firewood.”
I burned wood for heat most of my life… until I married my current wife (second go-a-round for me). Our daughter was born the first year premature (only weighed 2½ pounds) and because of lung problems the doctors told me to quit burning wood in the house (not just because of smoke, but also because of the associated ash and dust). The wife was a “city girl”… it was a real culture shock for her to move out in the sticks, and she didn’t touch the wood burner that first year. My daughter (now in her teens) has grown up healthy, and my wife has become a bona-fide hillbilly.
Last winter (2010/2011) I decided to burn wood for heat again… that decision came at Halloween, but I didn’t have a single stick of firewood (other than what I had sitting by the fire pit). My wife and kids watched out the window all winter, every Saturday, as I pulled logs from standing-dead up out’a the woodlot in waist deep snow, in all kinds of cold, wind and weather to keep our little furnace fired. She saw what kind of work was involved, but she liked not getting the “ticket” from the LP man every 3-5 weeks.
This last spring my wife helped split, haul out’a the woodlot and stack over 10-cord of heavy oak… and this last fall she helped split ‘round 5-cord of standing-dead, hard to split, elm (she’s afraid of the chainsaw, and stays away during cutting). She won’t leave anything behind in the woodlot… she’ll load all the butts, odd chunks and shorts into the back of the golf cart (even pieces I think are way too small to mess with). She chews me out because I don’t cut up the small branches and such… Her words, “If’n I’m gonna’ be out here in the weeds and bugs, sweatin’ my azz off, I will waste not!!” She sees each piece of firewood as hard earned dollar$, and won’t burn a single one if it ain’t absolutely needed.
Ya’ just gotta’ love a women that “gets it” don’t ya?!