Woodstove Nation
We follow the rhythm of our fuel choice. Our home's large cast iron woodstove requires a calendar of activity based upon annual, then monthly and finally, daily routines and rituals.
The cycle begins in April with calls to local loggers and firewood dealers. Men mostly, smelling of pitch, wet wool, smoke, and gasoline all washed in a patina of chain saw oil, they are consulted and bargained with. The discussions include weather, last year's wood consumption, pests, outerwear, trucks and heavy machinery. The order of discussion may vary but the subjects remain rooted in the routine reasoning bound up with the task at hand, that of purchasing this year's quota of cord wood. A price is finally agreed upon with one of these chainsaw sages sometime in the month of June.
In July, just when the garden has finally found its magnificent blossoming perfection and the grass spreads out green over our domestic fiefdom, an ancient truck, gears grinding, oil pan leaking, pulls into the yard and dumps the mountain of wood in a freakishly large pile onto the middle of our lush green lawn. The pile sits there through the month of July. The scent of rose is replaced by the smell of bark. The pile sits there through the month of August, while the grass withers. Weeds win the battle for space in the vegetable bed.
On a coldish day in September, we put on thick suede working man's gloves. Though our hands are unused to the hard labor of stacking, having surrendered the garden to nature back in July, we are game for the work ahead of us. The air is chill and damp with Fall winds and rainy days. The new wood is heavy with water. The golden pulp and cambria are paradoxically unyielding, yet feel and smell totally alive. We place the pieces of split wood alongside the last cord left from the previous season. Each year we begin with the idea of rows and columns of wood held firmly in our minds eye. My husband is equal to the task but I tend to become creative with the endcaps. The rows tilt madly on my side of the wooden wall, while his portion remains orderly and contained. Sometimes we plan for a crowd to help stack and then feed them soup and crusty bread. More often, it is a task performed alone with the smooth rhythm chosen to counteract the unyielding wood as it is placed in our tidy wooden walls.
Frost hits the region sometime in October, and the stove, swept clean in summer, is stoked for the first time. A backdraft baptizes the house with ashy green wood smoke and all the windows and doors are thrown open. We cough loudly as our lungs remember this annual assault of cinder smoke and creosote as we settle into the daily routine of heating our home in winter.
Wood is ferried from stack to porch, then to canvas wood sling, (a clever device invented long ago by some Shaker or Quaker or Yankee). We spend large parts of each day moving the wood from pile to pile and then to the stove box, where it is coaxed into fire with kindling and the Sunday Times, purchased regularly until March, just to have the paper on hand to get the blaze going each day. The draft is fiddled with constantly, opened and closed with elegant gestures which include the gentle tap, the patient tug and the heel push. The stove door is opened and closed again and again, feeding logs into the fire, stirring embers with the iron poker, grasping logs with the iron tongs. Each night we stoke the fire, building the heat in the hope that our bedroom will remain warm until morning, though this has NEVER happened.
Yet we love it. We love the smells, the bearded loggers, the sound of the wood chunks clunking into place as we stack. We love the sore muscles and the reward for our labors as we shuttle back and forth from the wood pile to the stove. We love the fire that glows hotly as we watch with contentment while snow piles up outside our door. There is no mystery to this work. We are the master of our domain, keeping safe on these long winter nights through the cold winters of Vermont. We are Woodstove Nation. We are proud.
The cycle begins in April with calls to local loggers and firewood dealers. Men mostly, smelling of pitch, wet wool, smoke, and gasoline all washed in a patina of chain saw oil, they are consulted and bargained with. The discussions include weather, last year's wood consumption, pests, outerwear, trucks and heavy machinery. The order of discussion may vary but the subjects remain rooted in the routine reasoning bound up with the task at hand, that of purchasing this year's quota of cord wood. A price is finally agreed upon with one of these chainsaw sages sometime in the month of June.
In July, just when the garden has finally found its magnificent blossoming perfection and the grass spreads out green over our domestic fiefdom, an ancient truck, gears grinding, oil pan leaking, pulls into the yard and dumps the mountain of wood in a freakishly large pile onto the middle of our lush green lawn. The pile sits there through the month of July. The scent of rose is replaced by the smell of bark. The pile sits there through the month of August, while the grass withers. Weeds win the battle for space in the vegetable bed.
On a coldish day in September, we put on thick suede working man's gloves. Though our hands are unused to the hard labor of stacking, having surrendered the garden to nature back in July, we are game for the work ahead of us. The air is chill and damp with Fall winds and rainy days. The new wood is heavy with water. The golden pulp and cambria are paradoxically unyielding, yet feel and smell totally alive. We place the pieces of split wood alongside the last cord left from the previous season. Each year we begin with the idea of rows and columns of wood held firmly in our minds eye. My husband is equal to the task but I tend to become creative with the endcaps. The rows tilt madly on my side of the wooden wall, while his portion remains orderly and contained. Sometimes we plan for a crowd to help stack and then feed them soup and crusty bread. More often, it is a task performed alone with the smooth rhythm chosen to counteract the unyielding wood as it is placed in our tidy wooden walls.
Frost hits the region sometime in October, and the stove, swept clean in summer, is stoked for the first time. A backdraft baptizes the house with ashy green wood smoke and all the windows and doors are thrown open. We cough loudly as our lungs remember this annual assault of cinder smoke and creosote as we settle into the daily routine of heating our home in winter.
Wood is ferried from stack to porch, then to canvas wood sling, (a clever device invented long ago by some Shaker or Quaker or Yankee). We spend large parts of each day moving the wood from pile to pile and then to the stove box, where it is coaxed into fire with kindling and the Sunday Times, purchased regularly until March, just to have the paper on hand to get the blaze going each day. The draft is fiddled with constantly, opened and closed with elegant gestures which include the gentle tap, the patient tug and the heel push. The stove door is opened and closed again and again, feeding logs into the fire, stirring embers with the iron poker, grasping logs with the iron tongs. Each night we stoke the fire, building the heat in the hope that our bedroom will remain warm until morning, though this has NEVER happened.
Yet we love it. We love the smells, the bearded loggers, the sound of the wood chunks clunking into place as we stack. We love the sore muscles and the reward for our labors as we shuttle back and forth from the wood pile to the stove. We love the fire that glows hotly as we watch with contentment while snow piles up outside our door. There is no mystery to this work. We are the master of our domain, keeping safe on these long winter nights through the cold winters of Vermont. We are Woodstove Nation. We are proud.
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