I pause at that, staring blankly a moment at the earthen wall of the cellar before shaking my head and resuming the steady passing of logs up through the door.

"Are you planning on digging with them or putting them on your feet? Because they're cast iron, so I doubt they'd work well for either of those things."

I feed a few more logs into the furnace to get it properly roaring, dust off my hands, and then climb back upstairs.

"I have a pair of dubiously-crafted snow shoes."