Meanwhile, back at the ranch . . .

[jhetley]

Temperature 10 F, winds gusting to 30 mph.

Not going for an afternoon walk.

Woodstove heating front half of house.  For the record, wood heat is messy, time-consuming, and potentially dangerous.  Cheap can have drawbacks.

Comments

[malkingrey.livejournal.com]

For the record, wood heat is messy, time-consuming, and potentially dangerous. Cheap can have drawbacks.

Hear hear. I eventually figured out that we had to shift every single log at least 3 times between its delivery as cordwood and its final immolation in our own basement Moloch.

I also reached a level of impatience with the typical depiction of firestarting and firetending in fantasy that almost approached the impatience of horsepeople for horses in fantasy -- characters in fantasy novels (and a lot of historical romances, too) are forever getting fires started on cold hearths in the mere blink of a subordinate clause, which is enough to make a cat laugh.

(But it's not in the least surprising -- and unlike a lot of other cliches, this one actually makes practical sense -- that the first basic "Magic 101"-type spell in a lot of systems is firestarting.)

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I think somebody published a whole story about building a fire, once upon a time . . .

[iamjw.livejournal.com]

When I lived up north the school I taught in was heated with a wood stove. I got very good at starting a fire Monday morning and keeping it going until Friday afternoon. I note that a) I never had to clean it and b) this was the second school building, the first having burnt down due to the wood stove.

I'm very fond of wood heat for a number of reasons, but my current propane fake wood stove works just as well, with no ashes to worry about.