Thursday, October 6, 2011

The heat feels good

After an extraordinarily dry summer -- driest since we arrived in Idaho eight years ago -- we're finally having the first significant rainfall since June.


The weather is chilly...


...and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.


Trouble is, we haven't yet had time to cut any firewood from the magnificent collection of logs we now have.

So for the moment we're burning scrap wood from the shop. We normally use this throughout the winter for kindling, but it also works as a stopgap for just plain heating the house.


It produces a very hot fire with a beautiful bed of coals.


Major, our aging black lab/hound mix, loves the woodstove. He's been known, almost literally, to wrap himself around it. So right now he's one happy camper!


The heat feels good in our cool house. I enjoy the change in season.

7 comments:

  1. I'm with Major! He looks comfy.

    Good thing the barn roof is in place.

    Just Me

    ReplyDelete
  2. This may sound like a strange question, but does the scrap wood contain chemicals that could harm you if you breathe them? Every time I go to Home Depot, the wood seems to be treated. Just curious

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nope! It's just plain wood. Many of the pieces are exotics such as vermillion or purpleheart, but there are no chemicals in them.

    - Patrice

    ReplyDelete
  4. our nights are in the mid fifties but our days are in the high seventies to the mid eighties. it will get cooler and wetter though by the time halloween gets here. in n.e. miss. we have usually very rainy wet winters and even though temperatures are not too bad it the humidity makes warm weather feel warmer and cold weather feel colder...i am with you on the cozy heat of a fire..dont feel bad about not having your fire wood ready...it happens to us all at one time or another.

    ReplyDelete
  5. (chuckle) My best friend (and domestic goddess) decided to take a quick vacation in Idaho... just in time for the rain!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Getting colder here in PA (near Gettysburg) as well. Lots of rain for the last two weeks. First freeze warning came out last night - enough time to get the last of my Garden Salsa Peppers off the plants and inside. Fortunately, it's going to be sunny and in the 70s for the two day soccer tournament dear daughter is playing this weekend.

    Thank goodness hubby has managed to get at least six cords of hardwoods cut, split and stacked all over the place, three of it seasoned and ready to go.

    ReplyDelete
  7. We built a fire yesterday, when it finally got cool enough. It rained off and on all night, at times hard. We needed the rain. We had a little snow this morning.
    How quickly things change, yet remain the same. I love autumn.

    For the poster concerned about treated wood: You are right to be concerned about it. Don't burn it, ever, even outside. The chemicals don't go away, they stay in the ashes and contaminate the ground, and can be absorbed into fruits and vegetables. I bet Patrice all ready knows this, though. We burn scraps of wood, too, but only that which is plain wood, no glues, no "treated" wood, not even in the bonfire pit.

    ReplyDelete