I never assume that my readers are as fascinated by the warmth and utility of purposeful fire as I am, whether it’s in a woodstove, a burn barrel or a fire ring. In fact, I doubt that very many of you appreciate it the way I do.
The same goes for harvesting and processing firewood.
That doesn’t mean I’ll stop talking about this stuff or quit sharing images. Ubi Libertas Blog is a public journal, and what you get here is what’s important to me.
Now here’s an animated gif of Saturday morning’s fire in my woodstove.
If you’re already tired of seeing that sort of thing, I’d like to remind you that it’s only October.
Anyway, about the title of this post — today’s header image and the photo below preserve a mistake. See it?
The firewood rack next to the woodstove is empty.
At that moment it was 5am on Saturday. Outside temp was 50°F and the skies were pouring down rain. I’d just used the last of my indoor supply of firewood to warm the cabin after letting Friday night’s lay burn to fluffy ashes and a couple of coals.
The living room cooled overnight to 65°F and the bedroom to 62°F. My morning wood [hey now] quickly raised those numbers to 76°F and 72°F. We’d be perfectly comfortable ’til I got around to traipsing outside and fetching more fuel.
Maybe when the rain stopped (5:30am). Or maybe after the sun came up (7:30am).
I know better than to go to bed without first making sure I have enough firewood indoors to keep the stove going past noon the next day. I’ll get into the habit of doing that.
This is why I did the season’s first burn while the weather’s still relatively mild. The stakes are pretty low at this point, and conditions are forgiving of mistakes.
This was Miss Smudge’s first-ever 24-hour day being around a running woodstove. How’d she do?
Just fine, thanks. She seems to respect the fire without displaying any sort of fear. I’ll keep an eye on her around the stove and issue correction when called for, but for now it’s working out.
I temporarily forgot, however, that she’s a chewer, more stick hound than cattle dog. And to her, I bring in firewood just so she has something to gnaw on — splits are nothing but big fat sticks.
A pile of shredded cherry bark on the living room rug reminded me that I’ll have to watch her like a hawk.
But I’ll tell you what — few simple pleasures compare to seeing a good dog basking in the glow of a cozy fire. The happy Heeler has that pose perfected.
Those combustibles were almost completely reduced to ashes when my phone rang. It was a video call from a good friend in Ohio, and I’d been expecting it — my ex-wife had arranged to meet him at my storage unit to return a considerable amount of my personal property, taken when she removed her own belongings months ago.
And so the transfer took place. When it was done, despite my friend letting me eyeball the haul on the video call, I still don’t know if everything that was missing has been returned.
I’m going to shake my head and leave it there for now, unless I’m given a good reason to change my mind and revisit this. I know more than I’m saying here, and I’d prefer to keep it that way.
My friend who did the dirty work and heavy lifting yesterday has my gratitude. He knows.
Rain fell on The Mountain most of Saturday afternoon. I used the indoor time to make progress on matters of civil procedure, which I’m required to complete in the next ten days.
I threw a big split on the coals mid-morning. It kept the cabin at 76°F until mid-afternoon. A nice, slow, hot burn.
I re-stocked the inside rack from the outside rack:
That (pictured, above) is all I had up-top. And this (below) is what the outdoor firewood rack looked like when I was done:
I’ll be slingin’ lots of chunks up from the wood yard over the next couple of days.
It was shortly after 5pm when the lights in the cabin flickered, then came back on. The same thing happened again a few seconds later. When they winked a third time, they stayed off.
That was at 5:09pm, according to the Entergy report. The outage affected just 52 customers, and it was the only one anywhere in Boone, Marion and Baxter counties.
I’d already served Smudge her dinner. I fixed myself cheese sandwiches. We settled in by a cheap battery-powered lantern and waited to see if the utility company would meet its restoration estimate of 7:30pm.
At 7:25pm, the estimate was revised to 9pm. We got power back before 8pm. Not bad.
Life is good.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable