Ode to the Woodstove

The log lies on a bed of glowing coals, a black silhouette against their red glow. The young flames dance cheerfully around its edges, their movements frantically quick and calmly serene at the same time. A silent music moves the fire, seen the glass window of the cast iron wood stove. The fire burns slow, consuming the fuel stored up over decades in the piece of a tree that once grew strong and proud on the hill up the way. For time out of mind, sitting in front of the fire and gazing into its flickering flames, has been a beloved pastime for mankind. And the warmth it casts! It is indeed a warm warmth- a cozy, wholesome warmth that sinks into your bones, dispels the dampness and gently drives out the chill. It is a warmth like that found elsewhere in nature- wool is another example- that cannot be replicated by any technology made by man.

Most homes are now heated by furnaces, hidden away in the basement, that force hot air through a labyrinth of ducts and through metal grates into the rooms of the home. It is a far more convenient, consistent and efficient heat source. It is one of the many modern ‘conveniences’ that make life more comfortable and full of ease.  

Heating with a woodstove is the opposite of convenient -  one might even say it is the antithesis of convenience and ease. The trees must be hewn, cut, split; the wood must then be piled, dried, moved, piled again, and carried into the house. The fire must be started, tended, fed regularly. The stove must be cleaned of ash, the chimney cleaned. The list goes on and on and the tasks repeated regularly.

But when all is said and done, if given the option of turning on the furnace and sitting to watch tv for the evening, or the work of the woodstove and the beauty of its warmth and flames, the choice is obvious. On a January night, so cold that the stars shine brighter in the dark sky above the snow covered fields, the fire burns cheerfully and true warming the bones and delighting the heart of all those sitting by the hearth.