Visual Description: Chopping combustibles.
GOBYE = BOGEY, CLERI = RELIC, RANDOW = ONWARD, SLALUC = CALLUS — Giving us: BOEREINARDCLUS
Clue/Question: To get enough firewood to warm up their home, he – – –
Answer: BURNED CALORIES
(Whew! That was a toughie! I completely second guessed myself on the last jumble. I’ve had calluses, but I was thinking callous, so it just didn’t look right. By the way, “callus” is a new clue word, so ralis95 will have to add it to his world famous clue word database! Hoyt is on a hot streak! We’ve seen both “cleri” and “randow” before.
The answer letter layout was – to borrow from LindaLee – devious! Nothing about it was obvious, to me. Especially, with the cartoon and dialog, and clue/question making me think it had to do with chopping wood, or splitting rails, or something to do with the axe, or the cord of wood piled up against the wall. I should have picked up on the gym talk and the weight loss talk sooner, but it took me a while. A good, challenging Friday Jumble! Be well and do good, friends.) — YUR
Images courtesy of Google
Unclerave's Wordy Weblog 
Yeah I struggled with this one too. I probably would have thrown in the towel at the 10-minute mark, because I didn’t feel I was getting anywhere, but I did solve the final answer at the 9:21 mark. Right away I figured first word -ED, last word -S, but that didn’t help. I got the key on the workout angle from the cartoon a few minutes in, but that didn’t help me either. I had to manually crunch out CALORIES playing with letters–odd that I got that longer, harder-to-see word before BURNED. And like you, Unc, I hesitated on CALLOUS/CALLUS but just for a few seconds.
Good tough puzzle! Rock on all.
BTW… “callus”… plural from of “callme”… make two surfer-dude hand signs (thumbs and pinkies extended, middle three digits curled to your palms) and hold them to each ear and your mouth while silently mouthing “callus.”
Any time we get 12+ letters in the secret word(s), it’s a potential challenge! This one took me longer than usual, UR. (It couldn’t be NAILED OBSCURER.) On the bright side, I’ve been whistling the Col. BOGEY March all day …
Yes, that was very tough! On this stormy, stay -in- the- house- day, it was good to have a tough one fall on today, but jeeez! I had to look up callus in the dictionary (yes I still have one) and kept trying to fit “carried” into 6 letters. Even with the gym theme, it took me forever to see burned and that was just by looking for 6-letter words that ended with “ed.” whew!
Joy to the world! Great to see you, kid! Much harder than today’s (Saturday’s). — YUR
I think that was a Top 40 Hit of its day, Roy! — YUR