Warmth

I was not always enthusiastic about heating with wood. In the little garage I had as a shop, getting a fire in the old potbellied stove was tricky. Don’t get it too hot too fast. Keep it carefully stoked. Use the right mixture of good hardwood and junk boatyard trimmings to keep it going. Once a week or so, we filled an empty barrel with trimmings from the cutoffs and waste at the boatyard – never turn down free firewood! I sometimes felt that I spent more time coaxing heat out of that stove than carving.

I also had to spend time periodically in the woodlot cutting down trees that I’d trim and buck into logs. I’d cut logs into smaller drums at stove length. Then split them into billets that I could transport to the shop. I tried to concentrate most of my woodlot work before the black flies came or after the mosquitos went south with the “Summer Complaints” ( tourists). To do this work, you had to be physically able and careful not to become distracted – A chainsaw, or a maul, is not malicious but won’t put up with your inattention.

All this was many yesteryears ago. And I cheerfully put it aside when I departed for grad school. I thought I’d seen the last of my days cutting and spitting, stacking, tending the fire, and emptying the ash.

But, as is often the case, wood-burning stoves were not done with me. When my wife and I purchased an old house with a cranky, inadequate heating system, I installed a wood stove to keep the family warm.

All my old skills formed the basis for my heating strategy in our new old home. Then, nights with the family sitting around the fire watching the flames grew popular, and I found the entire ritual of heating with wood enjoyable: Cut the wood, stack it, load it in the house, burn it, and empty the ash onto the garden. 

Of course, much of the labor’s payoff is the enjoyment the family gets from the results. Then, too, there is the warmth.