wood

I will be heating my house this winter with a soba.
There are sobas in most houses here, although there is a gradual switch to central heating.
But since I opted to not move into the centrally heated main house in the winter, I will be using a soba. My host family looked at me incredulously when I said I wanted to use the soba.
"Why?" my counterpart asked. "They are much more work and the wood is expensive!"
"Independence is important to me," I tried to explain. The independence to be able to leave my host families house at night and make noise without everyone knowing what I am doing, the independence to come and go without waking up the baby accidentally, the independence to have my own space for two years and not move into another space every few months, depending on the weather... The price of wood and time spent stoking the fire every few hours during the night seemed minuscule to me compared to the beauty of privacy and independence.
So, in order for the wood to be dry in time for the cold months, I needed to buy it this month, which I did a few days ago - three horse carts of wood. But the sobas have little doors, so the wood has to be cut up into relatively little wedges.
That is what we are doing right now. Ciprian expertly hacks at the wood with a giant ax while I cart away the wood wedges to the shed with an ancient, bent-up cart, and stack them.
Ciprian does not wear shoes or eye glasses for protection, which is a staple for American wood-cutting, in my past experiences.
When we get tired, we stop and eat apples from the trees in their yard and yell nice things across the road to the neighbors, who are also getting their wood ready for winter.