It's DONE

There it is, the winter's heat source.

My neighbors all think I'm insane to burn wood for heating our house. Wood is dirty; wood is inconvenient. Wood requires some splitting (which is hard work) and it all has to be carried in a few pieces at a time. Ashes have to be emptied when they get too deep -- dirty and inconvenient again. The neighbors all have gas-fired furnaces, and some have gas-fired fireplaces. Our house has a furnace like that too, so am I crazy to tend a woodstove when I could just set a thermostat and forget about it?

In fact, I doubt that my neighbors really believe that we can heat a four-bedroom house with a fireplace insert in the kitchen. And they're right, at least in terms of how people are taught to heat their houses. "Even" temperatures throughout the home are what these gas furnaces are designed for. They heat up a body of air, and push it through ductwork. Voila: the back bedroom and the kitchen are the same temperature. Warm, dry air is blown into a room, floats to the ceiling, and leaves the person on the couch shivering until he goes and turns up the thermostat again. $$$. When the cost gets too high, they wear heavy sweaters -- or go to the shopping mall, where the temperature is a balmy 72 degrees, and they can spend more money.

Sometimes it gets too hot in the kitchen where the stove is, but except for mealtimes, we don't usually hang around in there. The front room of the house is quite comfy. Two of the bedrooms are perfect temperature for sleeping, cuddled under a comforter. My studio is warm enough that I'm comfortable, and the bedroom I use has the window open all winter because I'm always too hot at night. My winter fuel bill is paid when the wood is delivered; the cost of that pile of wood dumped in the driveway is about what my shivering neighbors will pay in a month.

Yeah, I guess I'm insane. But there is a pleasure to stacking my wood, a satisfaction in seeing the odd-shaped pieces fit together; there is time to spend in prayer, in praise for the wonder of the renewable resource, in thanksgiving for the warmth it will provide. I've taken a week to stack the wood, a few wheelbarrows full at a time. God Who is Kind sent cool mornings for me to work in, and provided all the pieces to fit in each niche. Looks to me like being crazy has some value after all.