LETTER FROM BOBOLINK FARM
THE WOODSTOVE
By Barbara Tatham Johnson
I turn out the light on my way to bed to enjoy the comforting warmth the
fire in the woodstove radiates. I watch through the glass panel in the door
as the logs burn on the bed of coals. The outdoor temperature is nine
degrees below zero, and a strong northwest wind buffets the house.
An hour ago, my husband added logs to the stove to keep the heat constant
through most of the night. Atop the vigorous burn of a deep bed of coals, he
placed a big piece of black locust as well as smaller logs of apple and ash.
Scientists rate the net heat value from a pound of well-dried hardwood at
close to eight thousand British thermal units. A British thermal unit, or
Btu, is the amount of heat required to heat one pint of water one degree
Fahrenheit. The efficiency of a burning unit of wood is 50 percent as
compared with the higher efficiency of oil (65 percent) and electricity (100
percent), but the cost to us of firewood from our woodlot is minimal. Black
locust wood, hard to ignite (and so placed right atop the intense heat of
the coals), has excellent coal- making qualities. This is the wood that will
keep the stove radiating until dawn.
Earlier in the evening, my attempt to read a book evanesced into a deep
doze, affirming Leigh Hunt’s observation that “A fireside is a great
opiate.” I surrendered to the overpowering comfort of the heat much as a cat
luxuriates on a sunny windowsill. Some sensations are too wonderful to
resist.
Now, with sleepiness shaken off for a while, I relax and let my imagination
play with the dance and show of flame within the firebox. Yellow-tipped blue
banners ripple along the tops of the logs. The tight firebox holds a
temperature above a thousand degrees Fahrenheit, combusting close to 60
percent of the volatile gases in the wood. Edifices of partially consumed
wood, dark and seemingly solid, crowd together in the center. White-hot
chambers and halls might be entered along glowing staircases or through tall
windows. On a side, a plateau of gray ash covers the pulsing glow of coals
and looks as if a giant knife sliced a cross-section through a field of
molten lava. A high singing sizzle accompanies my thoughts as I watch the
leaping flames of burning gases rise high and break away upward toward the
stovepipe. An avalanche of embers reconfigures a corner.
Although the analogy is obvious, I do not find this a hellish landscape.
Milton’s “floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire” do not blaze here. My
fantasies are grounded in the utilitarian necessity of the woodstove
conflagration and, basically, are too practical to conjure thoughts of
everlasting punishment. Years of forest growth and many hours of hard human
labor burn as I watch. I appreciate the coziness and seek no lessons.
Certainly, the satisfaction of keeping warm with a wood fire is a comfort as
old as humankind. The blazes kindled in caves must have given early humans
more than utilitarian warmth and protection. Conviviality began around a
leaping blaze of bright flames. Thoreau was not a person one would describe
as merry, but he sounds almost cheery recounting a stop to build a fire of
pine logs during a wintry, countryside tramp with a friend: “Fire is the
most tolerable third party.”
Cutting and hauling firewood by hand is strenuous work, and the time will
come when the effort to gather wood will become more work than pleasure for
my husband. Last year we installed supplemental heating with a
propane-fueled space heater that takes the chill off the house in early
spring and late autumn and reduces our need for firewood.
Although well-dried firewood burns efficiently and creates only a bushel of
ash for each cord of wood, the removal of ash every few days is another job.
Each summer my husband climbs to the roof to remove creosote from the
chimney with a steel-bristled brush. Enjoying the woodstove “costs” more
each year. Yet, on the cold nights of November and well into March, our
aging bodies desire the intense radiance of the wood fire and the pleasures
of watching a merry scene within the firebox.
When evening temperatures in early spring remain in the forty-degree range,
the wood fire becomes oppressively warm, and, for a short while, the quiet
cold woodstove gives me feelings of sad separation. I miss the luxury I
savored only evenings before, but the meadow, losing the cover of snow,
starts to green. The red maple buds rouge the landscape. A red-winged
blackbird sings in the winter-worn tilted rush stalks by the pond. I can
stay outside well into the evenings to watch and listen for returning
woodcocks. I am willing to exchange the return of life for the pleasures of
the woodstove, although I keep a spark of anticipation for the royal
comforts of the fire’s warmth glowing within, ready for the return of
shorter days and cold winds.
