Mild Euphoria: The Wood Stove

July 7, 2022 – Thursday

It was an eventful day! Our little wood stove was installed today in the basement. Luckily we had an existing concrete chimney on the outside of the building, which could be used for the stove pipe, which made the install that much easier.

They found lots of mouse nests, and all that goes with that. As well they found a long dead bird. They also saw two mice run away outside to hide below the concrete of the garden shed. Mice are such a pestilence. The house reeked for over an hour while they were removing the mouse mess and the dead bird. They didn’t complain. Two young men did the job, they were very good. It was a bonus that they were friendly as well.

It all went smoothly, and we have our new little wood stove, ready for a first firing when the weather is cooler. The stove will off gas for the first few hours on the first firing, so all the windows will need to be open. We are looking forward to to our first fire!

Attila is waiting until the new electric heating system is installed to finish the wall behind the wood stove, which needs framing, insulation, and drywall.

The company who installed the wood stove insisted on giving us some fire starters, and a cleaning liquid for the glass. I told them I didn’t want it, but they said, “just try it”. Rather than argue about something this trivial, we received the items. They will not likely be used. I start fires with a match, crumpled paper, and kindling, and have never, not even once, used a fire starter. I’ve been building fires for over 50 years and am not going to buy products to do a simple job like starting a fire. As for cleaning the glass, we did it for over a decade at the Country House, using dampened crumpled newspaper and cold fine wood ash from the fireplace. Again, I am not going to pay for a toxic chemical to do a job as simple as cleaning fireplace glass.

July 10, 2022 – Sunday

Yesterday Attila split one of the large Ash logs in the back yard. I collected the split wood to store it in the metal basket we used for our firewood at the Country House. I know there is a popular movement to get rid of everything you haven’t used in the last year, but we find that does not work for us. The metal wood bin is an example of an item we haven’t used since 2015, and are just now finding it useful, and expensive to replace.

Today Attila is cutting the rest of the logs to a size that will fit easily into our new wood stove. Then he will split the logs. My suggestion was to split one a day, that way the job would not seem to overwhelming. The whole Ash tree is sitting out there in pieces, so it is a very big job to split it all. Ash is a lovely wood to burn for heat. We have one more dead Ash tree in our yard here at Mist Cottage, which has not been felled yet. If we ever run out of firewood we have plenty of dead Ash trees at our Camp to harvest. However, since the wood stove is meant for use only when the hydro is out during the winter, I doubt we will ever need to bring firewood from the Camp.

We have had a busy weekend. Yesterday we made pesto with our garden basil, and froze enough for over twenty meals. We packaged the frozen sausage patties that we made last week, and returned them to the freezer. Also yesterday I sorted wheat berries, and milled two gallon jars full of whole wheat flour. I baked bread. I had boiled ginger in sugar water last week, and instead of discarding the sugar water as per recipe instructions, it was saved and kept in the refrigerator. That is the liquid I used for the bread, the bread was perfect, no difference in taste, compared to my usual loaves.

The garden keeps Attila very busy, as we are in near drought conditions and everything needs to be watered every single day. The plants survived but do not thrive when watered from our rain water tanks, or municipal water supply. When it rains plant life bursts with renewed vigor. We are hoping for rain this week.

We were thinking of traveling out to the Camp today, but decided to stay home as I wasn’t feeling all that great. The surgery sheet mentions possible post-op discomfort, and boy oh boy, they weren’t kidding. The “discomfort” comes and goes, but it was decided to stick close to home just in case it escalated. Thankfully it seems to have died down now, but too late in the day for a road trip.

When the installers were here to put in the wood stove, I had opened the basement window to provide them with a ventilated space to work in. This is the first time that the basement window was left open. It is shocking how much cooler the house has been on hot days with that little window open. Who knew! Today the humidex is 31C, but it is quite comfortable in the house, and a hot as Hades out in the sun. The open basement window will help later in the month when the new electric heating system is installed, as the weather people predict hot weather, and we will not have air conditioning for at least three days during the install.

I am very happy that the Vascular Surgeon’s office called to schedule an appointment for me in the fall, in regard to my aneurysm. It will be a relief to have an expert who deals with this particular issue look at my scans, and answer some of my questions. There may be further tests. The aneurysm is what it is, there is no getting around the hard fact of it, but living with that fact will be much easier for me when I have a good grasp of my particular situation, and I I know I am monitored by someone who is an expert in this medical field.

Worldly

Weather

Updated on Sun, Jul 10, 3:15 PM
28 °C
FEELS LIKE 31
Partly cloudy
Wind 17 SW km/h
Humidity 40 %
Visibility 33 km
Sunrise 5:33 AM
Wind gust 25 km/h
Pressure 101.7 kPa
Ceiling 9100 m
Sunset 8:52 PM

Quote

“Success is following the pattern of life one enjoys most.”
Al Capp
1909 – 1979