I see no good reason why any woman can not fill and control a wood stove. After all, a child can do it so a grown woman surely should be able to do it. And when I say a child can do it, I am speaking from my own experience as from about age 8 or thereabouts on it was my duty to keep the stoves going....and I loved it.
My wife is terrible at getting a fire going and reloading no matter how many times I go over it and she always shuts the bypass way to early and the cat stalls on her all the time. grrr. No real getting through to her after a year...I don't it is going to get better. Not much I can do.
She helps split (with splitter) and stack, but wont buck or hand split. She does bring wood to the door pile regularly though.
It works out unless I am working 14 hour days, I come home to a kinda warm house but have to open everything up, spread out coals, re-arrange whats in the stove so it burns apprpriately and then get it up to temp and fire up the cat.
My wife is all for wood burning, but, no so much into fuelling the fire. Sure, she came out and helped with the wood, helped stack and every thing else involved, but, as of yet, has not put a stick of wood in the stove. I don't have a problem with that. I just fill it up when I get home after work, and it is good until I do it again 24 hours later.
My problem now, is if some thing happens, either to me, or some thing where I have to leave for a few days. So, that being said. I am going to let the fire go out this weekend (it has been burning for about 2 weeks now) and teach her how to start it, then, I am going to teach her how to load it, and take care of it.
I agree with the above poster. Remind her of the bills of last years heating, and she will come around and enjoy the heat and the savings.
Remember how girl children are raised, by their parents and by society as a whole, to value cleanliness, neatness and also caution. Boys are mostly raised to lift the hood of the car, dig in and get dirty. "Watch this. Hold my beer." The rough equivalent for girls goes something more like, "Uh-oh! Be careful!"Wow. This is really interesting reading. Keep it coming.
Remember how girl children are raised, by their parents and by society as a whole, to value cleanliness, neatness and also caution. Boys are mostly raised to lift the hood of the car, dig in and get dirty. "Watch this. Hold my beer." The rough equivalent for girls goes something more like, "Uh-oh! Be careful!"
I don't trust my wife to run the stove too often on her own. There... I said it. She's way too distracted and scatter-brained, and I can 100% guarantee that she'll leave at least one of them run wide open in bypass for an hour as she runs around distracted with other chores, before remembering she was supposed to do something about it. She's smart, capable, and strong... but she lacks the basic discipline required for this simple job.
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