As many little girls have done, I grew up reading the Little House on the Prairie books and being so enamored with the life that Laura and her family had. There was simplicity in their day to day tasks, but the details of making the "simple" life fascinated me. Having spent my entire life in the city, it all seemed an idyllic dream.
Fast forward to present day. I am currently writing this on a laptop in front of a woodstove--a feature of the house that I had previously never considered or had on any "want" checklist, but one that I love dearly now.
There's a rhythm and a schedule to the woodstove that becomes a part of life on a farm... or just a house with a stove. Obviously, during the winter, it's a source of warmth and comfort. Kindling and scraps of paper get stacked in the house for the day's fire. I can hear my husband in the morning, coming out into the cold living room, the creak of the stove door and the hopeful scrape of the poker in search of any leftover coals to speed up the process. My oldest girls wake up in time to help carry in some logs, tracking in bits of leaves and bark from outside as they drop off their haul. I can hear my husband blowing on coals, coaxing the kindling to catch. I hear the girls complaining about the smoke and soot that blows out and has to be cleared.
By the time I'm up (I am a notorious night owl and mornings are not my friend) there is a roaring blaze, and the glowing warmth has filled the living room, slowly making its way down the hallway. Logs snap and crackle merrily, and the heavy stone pot on the stove is already steaming away. During the daytime, I have a train of country girls following me as I push our squeaky wheelbarrow across the yard to collect logs for the woodbox on the porch. Clunk, clunk. Each girl diligently tosses them in---little logs and sticks when the fire is small, and big rounds to put in at night to make sure the stove is warm until morning.
There is much to discover in the woodpile, if you would believe it. One day, we discovered a rat's nest nestled right in the middle of the pile. Mounds of woodchips and bark and stockpiles of acorns tumbled out when one strategic log was removed. There was a scuffle and a rustle, and a giant, disgruntled rodent took off, home abandoned and dogs in hot pursuit of a new playmate. Sometimes we find the silver lace of an old snake skin. A reptilian neighbor that had used the cool shade of the logs during the summer months. Thankfully, we haven't yet seen one hiding in the wood, although my husband has admitted to taking a swing at one that escaped in that direction.
We teach the girls to go slow. Only taking one log at a time, and never sticking their hands inside the pile into dark spaces. Snakes and rats are fun for distant observations, but a rattler bite or a rodent bite means a long trek to the hospital for antivenom or potential rabies treatment. Occasionally, we will find spider egg sacs, swathed in silk, attached to logs--and then we check for wolf spiders and black widows that might be catching a ride, too.
The little ones collect twigs and wood chips and put them in our kindling bucket. Also, any scrap paper, junk mail and whatever is safe to go into the fire gets rounded up as well.
In the spring, you can see my husband, chainsaw over one shoulder, closely followed by wife and children, walking up and down the stretch of our property looking for felled trees from the winter rains. Downed trees are cut into rounds, and taken down to be split into logs to be arranged in piles. This is their favorite part because the log splitter is one of the few heavy machines they are allowed to help work with, on account of its incredibly slow speed. Also, its fun for them to wear the ear and eye protectors :)
The hot days of summer dry out these logs until the following winter. The logs are covered under our shed, and we tend to avoid the pile then because of the aforementioned rats and snakes that tend to make it their home. Our cats and dogs probably find the woodpile so interesting for that very same reason.
There are some downsides to the fire. It was a little bit of a learning curve for me to even light a fire in the thing to being with. I had fireplaces growing up, but we mainly fueled it with a Duraflame log and that was good to go. I literally had to Google, "how to build a fire in a woodstove" the first time my husband had to go out of town, and I woke up to a chilly house.
"No one does that," my husband had said.
"I did that," I replied.
I'm a little bit self-conscious, still, starting a fire while he's watching. I know I don't do it the "right" way or the "efficient" way, but it works... and I'm usually the one who starts it in the evenings anyway, and I don't hear anyone complaining to being warm then :)
There's always a layer of ash and soot around the stove. Logs leave little trails of debris by little feet carrying them in. And obviously it takes time to heat up a house with a stove rather than turning up the thermostat. We always have to keep a pot of water on the stove to steam because a woodstove dries out the air without some sort of humidifying system (although in a pinch, a wet towel hanging nearby works the same way)---this is particularly great for drying wet boots, socks, gloves, etc. after rain or snow play days.
Each one of the girls has burned their finger on the stone or touching the door. But it only takes one touch and they never do it again. I'm always looking for the poker or the shovel because someone has decided to use it as a toy for the day.
But on the other hand, in the winter time our electricity bill plummets because burning wood is free. We sometimes drop in a cinnamon stick or jujubes or a knuckle of ginger... maybe some lavender, juniper berries, or a sprig of rosemary into the water pot, and then the whole house smells like holiday potpourri as it simmers. Before it broke, we had a heavy bottomed kettle on it as well, so I, an avid lover of tea, always had a warm cuppa ready for me.
Obviously, my farm life is a far cry from that of Laura Ingalls Wilder, but it's one of the many "simple" things that now make up a part of me.
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