I was finally able to assemble all the parts and pieces of the woodshop’s tiny woodstove and get the stove operational.  Last Wednesday Ian loaded the woodstove with paper and kindling and, with match in hand, sent the stove on its maiden voyage.  While yellow flames flickered and wood crackled, a flood of memories of our family home in Corvallis emerged, including that of our wood burning stove with its nurturing warmth.
 
I’ve always been partial to heating with wood and the feeling runs deep.  We moved into our home on Tampico Road in September of 1982 with little being finished.  The home was watertight, although there was no siding on the outside, just black plastic to keep the moisture out.  Our front door was made of cardboard, and when the weather turned cold, we simply wrapped our cardboard door with a blanket, giving us an insulated door.  The only heat source was a portable electric heater that was moved from room to room.  We didn’t get our main heat source, a wood burning stove, until a couple of months later.  Dale Romrell, the Facility Manager at Hewlett-Packard, knowing our plight, offered to sell us his old woodstove.  We agreed on a price of $300 and terms of $100 per month.  In January we started our first fire in the stove and the home and family were finally warm.

Every Saturday I would take the chainsaw and walk into the forest behind our home and cut down a few small trees that were standing dead.  These were the only trees that were dry enough to burn.  I would drag the trees to the front yard where I would cut them to length and carry the wood into the garage.  This became a weekly ritual.

As you might have heard said, wood warms you twice - once when you cut it, again when you burn it.  You might as well add a third warming, too, when you haul it from the woods to the house.  Cutting wood was a perfect excuse for going to the woods when there were less manly house chores to be done, as well as the obvious justification for owning a pickup truck.  But then there’s the messiness of wood, the dirt, bark and bugs a woodbox collects, the inevitable trail of debris across the living room floor and the not infrequent chore of cleaning and carrying the ashes out.

After the barn/woodshop was built a few years later, the woodstove from the house was relocated to the shop and a new wood burning stove was purchased.  The woodstove remained in the home until Lisa and I remodeled the home in 2004, installing a gas fireplace.  The new gas fireplace was now heating the home.  It was neat, clean, and convenient to use.  On cool mornings I’d flip the switch and put my backside to the fire.  No stoking the stove, no waiting at all, instant heat.  It was nice.  It was toasty warm sitting on the hearth sipping hot chocolate, but I learned to miss my old wood stove.  Gas and wood don’t heat the same, don’t warm the body in the same way.    

Now, on cold winter mornings, I’d take all the trouble and mess again just to have my crackling wood fire back.  But I now have that option.  All I have to do is drive my truck to the woodshop in Ian’s backyard and fire up the wood burning stove.  More nurturing memories to be made.

I received my Fitbit 2017 year in review statistics.  My Fitbit tracked 3,565,614 steps, 1,635 miles walked or run, and 560,272 calories burned.  I didn’t make my goal of 10,000 steps per day, only averaging 9,768 per day.  But, given my knee replacement surgery that kept me from getting many steps in January and February, it’s not too bad for an old man.

After years of dealing with an annoying fungus located under the nail of my big toe, I finally gave up and had the toenail removed.  The fungus has been there for as long as I can remember.  As the new nail grows out I’m suppose to apply a special cream to the toe on a daily basis.  Hopefully when it’s fully grown the fungus will not return.

I heard back from my friend (who owns an architecture/construction firm) who was going to talk with his partner about hiring me.  He did speak with his partner and his partner wants someone younger.  Well, at least they were honest about letting me know I was too old for them.

Vivian has a new box she seems quite satisfied with.