The first week of school comes to an end.
The kids are all draggin'-feet tired.
Too many months of up late, sleep in! But now reality has come charging back in the form of a big yellow school bus, rumbling down the road. Lights flashing. Engine droning.
And they're off!
Cool nights.
Promise of warm fires.
Stacked wood.
Jam in the cupboard.
Food in the freezer.
Generator's working, gas can's filled.
Summer's waning...
Anybody need a sweater?
Reflections Upon the
ReplyDeletePromise of warm fires.
Fires are so much more than warm. Fires can become a visual feast of ballet dancing flames. There is also the sweet music in the orchestration of crackly pops and the ever shifting logs seeking a more comfortable position. With the right wood and selected chips the aroma can provide a path to still living childhood memories. Then there is popcorn applauding its new life over the flames and the marshmallows that self-immolate into a guilty sweetness. Of course, there is the mandatory braided oval rug in front of the screen made from the gifts of Christmases past. And who can forget the delightful radiant heat that you adjust to perfect by simply moving closer or further away. Human moths we become at the foot of the hearth and home. Oh how we love those flames that fueled our shadow movies for eons when a cave was what we called home. There is something absolutely poetic about the promise of warm fires.
Ruth: you are, as always, an inspiration.
Vince is right, Ruthy, you're an inspiration.
ReplyDeleteWe're evaluating the house (again), wondering where a wood stove would fit.... I miss the warmth. There's nothing as warm as a wood fire.
Oh, and a stocked pantry. The fire warms from the outside, the stocked pantry warms from the inside.
The cooler days mean soup and bread and pies. What can be better?
Aw, shucks. ;)
ReplyDeleteVince, that's so stinkin' poetic that I'm lovin' it completely. I've always loved the rustic notion that wood heats three times... When you cut it, when you stack it, and when you burn it! And it's so true. Mother Nature at her finest, before we invented push-button everything.
Jan, hmm... I love a stocked pantry. And a stocked freezer. It always seems like I'm better prepared if there's accessible food, light and heat. Did you notice last year that we got our beautiful stove from www.woodstove.com on the Vermont/NH border? We had it shipped to Rochester, picked it up in our pick-up truck and installed it ourselves (we already had existing chimney for old wood stove...) We saved around 2K that way. I had shopped all around locally and couldn't find a nice one to heat this big ol' barn of a house for under 4,000.... Then I stumbled onto their website and Jan, we love this stove. Just love it. It was $150 to have it shipped here... $250 for the West Coast area.
Pie. Bread. All those carbs that are my undoing. ;) Then I do a pre-emptive strike for three weeks in November, a three-week Ruthy diet so I'm prepared for holiday feasting!!! I love holiday feasting!