We have a wood stove! No upstairs windows-- but we have a wood stove! More than any other development thus far, this one has made me feel most at home in this place. I feel it is a bit premature for me to wax and wane about something with which I have little experience. But I will gladly let someone else do it:
The wood stove offers much more than warmth. It creates an atmosphere that high-tech gas logs with a press-of-the-button remote control can’t come close to achieving. The welcome smell of wood smoke (sometimes a whole roomful on damp evenings before the chimney starts drawing properly), the snap and pop from dry kindling or a misplaced cedar log, the radiating heat and even the ashes have their place in the whole ambiance of heating with wood.
Boy Scouts and old salts love wood stoves almost as much as whittling on sticks with their pocket knives. Cutting firewood in the forest, sawing logs, splitting, hauling and stacking cut wood, even hauling it from the wood pile or garage to the wood box bring a measure of pleasure.Tinkering with the damper on the stovepipe and setting the draft control to get a long, hot, efficient burn all add up to a rewarding experience, a real throwback to bygone days of pioneers who kept the fires burning to ward off winter’s chill.
As I turn off the room light and settle back in my easy chair, I quickly get lost in the hypnotic dance of the flames flickering through the isinglass. Thoughts of inflated fuel prices and brutal windchills drift away leaving only the cozy smell of woodsmoke lingering in the air. The stove’s radiant glow warms my feet, my face and the whole room offering comforting reassurance that all is good with the world.
-Tim Sweet- WNR Magazine-
