First of all, I am happy to report that we are indeed having what I call a fine Mongolian winter again: dry, dusty, mostly sunny, hardly ever any wind, and freezing-ass cold. It would be colder with more snow cover, I’ll bet, since solar heat would be reflected instead of stored. I’m not sure how that squares with the nine below zero we had the other night, but still. Psychologically speaking, if it doesn’t look as much like winter, it doesn’t seem to be so much of an ordeal. That, and there’s no mud!
The bad thing is — aside from the obvious fact that no snow now could mean trouble for the summer — without big piles of snow, I can’t just step outside the front door and take dramatic photographs. Usually that’s a no-brainer. As it is, I have to get out and drive somewhere. But when the temperature is in the teens, I’d rather stay here and feed the woodstove until the firebox glows and creaks like a runaway nuclear reactor core. There’s no more reassuring treatment for freezing-ass cold than a stove so hot it melts your leg hairs off within three feet, hoo boy. When the solid adobe wall on two sides of the mighty Ashley soaks up enough of that energy, the whole house feels pretty civilized. (I walk around in bare feet.) And you can always go into the bedroom to cool off if need be, because the fan I use to circulate this thermal goodness around doesn’t shove it quite that far.
There is nothing like the heat of a wood stove. The fuel in this case is wood I can usually light with a match, at least the little pieces. No paper or kindling, really. And with a bed of coals in there, I just lay a couple of sticks of aspen across the glowing mass and set a chunk or two of piñon on top of that. Close the door, wait 90 seconds, and FWOOM, it’s roaring again. You learn these kinds of things running a stove 24/7. The fire may be technically out a time or two each week between now and May or June, but never long enough for the cast-iron top of the Ashley to get cold.
[Getting up, walking into the other room to toss in another piece...]
The stovepipe goes straight up from the stove into the ceiling. There must be about 10 feet of flue, counting the four feet of insulated metal chimney poking up above the easily-accessible flat roof. This is relevant, because the kind of wood I burn will load up the thing with soot. If you don’t have any experience of this, I’m talking about something that looks like a big fuzzy black fungus growing inside the pipe, sometimes thick enough to halve the effective diameter. You know this has happened when you wake up with a headache, or the house starts smelling really smoky.
These deposits are very fragile, and when you touch them, they disintegrate into bazillions of flakes that can float some distance in the air. It’s also the filthiest stuff in the world. I know both of these things because every 10 days or so, I have to go up on the roof and rattle a long wooden pole around inside the chimney to knock the junk off. Trouble is, this almost always happens with some coals still in the stove, and the updraft sends an evil black belch right up into my face unless I remember to duck. Hippie chimney cleaning, I call it.
Most of the soot ends up in the stove, of course, and has to be emptied with the ashes. All of this basically sucks, but hey, we’re living in a house made of mud with single-pane windows, and we’re keeping warm on below-zero nights. Sometimes I even open the window.
Yah, I’ve probably told these stories before, but it’s winter. Working the stove is what I do.
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I’m really very lucky. This stuff is gasoline in my tank.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
John did you make that heater? I remember you could weld things up. I have some very rusty plant holders” Chicken shaped”somewhere around here.Put some new LAB music up I am tired of the old stuff. LEO
No, that’s the very classic Ashley wood stove from the original Whole Earth Catalog.
More Lost Austin Band mp3s, I hear ya…