First fire

Read in HIggin's post that they had lit the first fire of the season. I'm sure some of our members have been lighting fires for a while now. I had my waterbator set up near my little woodstove, but have moved it in preparation of our first fire. It's coming. My feet feel it first. The floor is cold.

Something about lighting a fire throws a switch and subtle changes take place. It's hard to explain but life begins to feel different when we enter the heating season. The best way I can describe it is as a hunkering down time. A cozy time. A time to bake things so the house smells good. A time to put away the tank tops and pull out the woolly socks. Time to buy a new bottle of peppermint schnapps to add to late evening hot chocolate.

I woke today with the inner urging to get things done. CLean up the garden and get it ready for a long winter's nap. If I want any craft or quilt projects done for Christmas, time to get cracking now! Plywood has been purchased and winterizing plans are underway for various animal shelters.

Autumn gives me a new energy, but its energy that will end in a sweet rest. OR so I think. Perhaps this is a way of fooling us because for the animal keeper, there is little rest over winter. There is just a different set of problems. But at least no one is lambing or putting up hay. We get a break from that. Frozen waterlines and snow drifts in the hay shed, those are different problems.

We have not lit our first fire yet but I feel it coming. Maybe tonight. I have cleared everything off the little woodstove, she's ready to go. Next will be the furnace, which I dread. The first time that furnace fan kicks in it belches forth a cloud of dust that takes DAYS to clean up! I will busily replace all the filters in the vents first, hoping to minimize the dirty blast, but it blows through anyway.

There is something though about the crackle of a fire. It calls for the tv and radio to be turned off, the lights dimmed, draw a chair close, put your feet up, let the warmth seep into your soul and let your eyes grow heavy. You're here, you're warm, you're safe. Rest.

We had our first 'real' frost last night. 0 when I got up at around 6 this morning. I am not ready!
Our house stays reasonably warm, hope we don't need a fire for a little while yet. If it rains I will be whining for one though.....

2 nights in a row we have had to light a fire. NOT cool   oh wait it is   I need to get some more wood. Farmers almanac says its going to be a cold winter this year.

“One afternoon, when I was four years old, my father came home, and he found me in the living room in front of a roaring fire, which made him very angry. Because we didn't have a fireplace.”
― Victor Borge

Fowler wrote:“One afternoon, when I was four years old, my father came home, and he found me in the living room in front of a roaring fire, which made him very angry. Because we didn't have a fireplace.”
― Victor Borge

  He was a funny guy.

Woke up to find the first real frost on the ground. Noticing also the days getting shorter. I don't light a fire but my senses are already keying in to the season's change. Seems like each year though, it gets harder to push myself to get things done. Maybe it's age? Maybe the ache in my bones? Personal issues with my parent? Knowing that I just have days that I don't feel like doing this no more...then I feel better when I do get things done and great when a project is completed.

Leaves have already started falling here too.

I have a round of wood waiting to be split outside, but stopped to sharpen the axe. We will see if DIL will clean the chimney after I remove the baffle.

The warmth of a wood fire can't be replicated , it wraps around you like a blanket and it holds you , you just can't get that with  gas or electric heat ! Autumn is here and it's a subtle reminder of what is coming  , and knowing that the wood is stacked and ready is all that most need to start there "" relax "" into a different world  where white dominates and the cold steals heat from where ever it can ............ya gotta love it

We haven't had to light ours quite yet, but we cleaned out the chimney and have about 4 cords stacked already with another 5 or so to split.
We heat exclusively with wood here..... remember.... "winter is coming".... actually I haven't seen that series (have read the books) yet, it's my plan for this winter when farming dies down  

I am not ready for winter, I have a lot of wood tocut and the chimney to sweep.

The chimney has been swept today, a new rain cap installed and the soot cleaned out of the stove. Cleaning the soot out of the stove is a bit of a job as a baffle has to be taken out, cleeaned and muscled back into its place. I filled the stove with some wood, but it is not needed tonight.

I had someone lined up to cut firewood from the back of my place and it fell through. So I have about 1/3 of a cord in my shed and I'll have to *buy* wood (where is the spitting emoticon!?!) this year. I have a ton of standing dead wood out back but have never used a chainsaw and am not about to make that my first experience. Crap hey?

But I do love a woodstove fire. My main focal point in my living room is my little woodstove. I won't be sad when it's time to fire her up.

I have to say, I am going to miss having a wood fire. There isn't one in the new place. I think there is a gas fire, but it is not the same. I wouldn't miss having it as the ONLY heat in the house, that can be a pain here.

At the start of the season I'm always ready, aside from the volcanic blast of dust. But to be honest, by the time the winter is over, I am so sick of lighting fires that I could scream. Usually around the end of March I begin to whine "Why don't we ever have oil? The neighbours have oil. Why can't we have oil too?"

So for now I will enjoy the snap and crackle (of the wood stove) which morphs into the smoke belching ultimate fighting of wrestling Big Ugly Wood into the gaping maw of the furnace. We will wade through miserable stingy fires of soggy, rotten cottonwood. From there it will leap to the short but intense fires of cedar castoffs. Then the miserable nights of throwing off the covers and cursing at the Hub. "Will you please STOP stuffing that furnace full of birch just before bed!"

Ah, winter and wood.

We just had our wood stove taken out. Plan to get an insert in the fireplace but going to miss it this winter.

Hmmm, pretty cold in the house this morning and frosty outside. Tempted to light a fire but it looks like it is going to be sunny and I will hold off.
You will miss it Fowler, I think when you are used to the sound and feel of a fire when it is not there you sure notice it.

Just had our first fire. Not really for the heat, but for the dampness. We don't have any other heat source.
With the wedding this year in July, we got about 12 cords split and stacked by then. More to tidy up than to be prepared for a change lol. Almost all of it is fir this year.
I think last year, I lit the fire once, and I finally let it go out in the spring.

Hillbilly wrote:Just had our first fire. Not really for the heat, but for the dampness. We don't have any other heat source.
With the wedding this year in July, we got about 12 cords split and stacked by then. More to tidy up than to be prepared for a change lol. Almost all of it is fir this year.
I think last year, I lit the fire once, and I finally let it go out in the spring.

Thats what we do most of the time, just light it and let it burn. Watch the weather and let it burn out on a warmer day just enough to shovel it out and light er up again.

I would love to have all the fir you have hillbilly!! You guys are so energetic.