Working like a woodstove ~ November 29, 1990

David Heiller

The woodstove is finally earning its keep at our house, and so are Noah and I.

On Sunday, we stacked about four cords of wood. I did most of the work, but Noah kept a steady pace too for four hours. We stacked wood and listened to the Vikings beat Chicago 41-13, and even took a hot chocolate-peanut butter cookie break. Is there a better way to spend a sunny November afternoon?

Afterward, Noah had to take off his shirt and make me feel his arm muscles. Yup, I said, they feel a little harder, and they did.

The wood stove was, for much of the year, central to our house and family. (Why don't I have any photos of it?) 
Anyway, this is more or less how we
 heated our home for many many years.

(I must confess that he was also motivated by the dollar I promised if he helped stack the whole pile, and he got his buck.)

We’ve had fires in our Fisher wood stove since September, mostly burning up old elm that feels and heats like cardboard. A stove-full is gone in an hour or so.

But these days, with temperatures in the single digits, you really appreciate that old woodstove.

You come home late at night or after work, and the house has a chill to it that makes you shiver when you take off your coat, which you don’t do until the ritual of lighting the woodstove:

n   Crumple up some newspaper; maybe add a little birch bark and kindling.

n   Strike a match—only ONE match is allowed. Soon you hear snap-crackle-pop that puts Rice Krispίes to shame.

n   Add more wood—the crackling turns to a roar. The smell of smoke trickles into the room. Not the ugly stink of charred homes and tragedy, just the hint of smoke, the kind you smell in a sweater in the summer that reminds you of winter, of birch and pine and oak.

n   Stand over the stove for a few minutes, feeling the heat pulse out like a friendly heart beat, as it reaches slowly for the kitchen and living room and through the ceiling register to the kids’ rooms upstairs.

In the morning, the kids carry their clothes down from their bedrooms and get dressed in front of the stove. I button my shirt there too. It’s a friendly spot, in front of a woodstove.

In fact, there’s nothing friendlier than a woodstove when it’s earning its keep. The colder the days, the friendlier the stove.

I like to burn wood for a lot of reasons that could list out here in logical fashion. But that would seem pretty silly, because I suspect the main reason is the simple Boy Scout joy of lighting a fire.

But here are two anyway:

1.      Heating with wood is a lot of work: cutting and hauling and splitting and stacking and carrying all that wood. Sometimes I dread the thought of it, especially when it’s the first of September and I realize that I don’t have enough wood for the winter, and I think of all the work that lies ahead. It creates a primitive fear that I won’t have enough firewood for the winter, and Cindy and the kids may freeze to death because of my careless sloth. But I like that fear. It makes me think and plan and feel proud and, yes, work.

2.      And once that work starts, I’m thankful in a perverse way. My back hurts at first, and my arms ache a little. But soon I feel my arm and back muscles tighten, like they do every fall. I start to feel a bit more in touch with my body, a bit more in shape, a bit younger.

But not as young as Noah. Although sometimes I still take off my shirt and feel my arm muscles.