Wally Farley pushes a wheelbarrow of wood in 1910. He was supplying both home and a boarding house the family ran at Karekare beach, near Auckland. His nephew Wallace Badham would later recall that ‘each month tons of wood would be used for heating and cooking’, so trips with the barrow were frequently made. Wood and coal fires involved considerable work. Firewood could be gathered, or, like coal, bought, delivered, stacked or stored. Fires had to be laid (often by the men or boys of the household), grates and fireplaces cleaned out, and the ashes disposed of.