winter at the lee (so far)

i’m pretty tickled, though not very surprised, that the shine has not worn off this crazy new home of ours.  winter, while challenging in new ways, has been pretty damned fantastic here at the lee of the stone. new developments include:

ALL THE WOOD.  winter has been relatively kind to us so far, and we’ve managed to stay pretty well out of negative temp territory this january.  that being said, the high today was 16, which takes its own kind of toll.  not exactly eyeball-freezing cold, but these cockles ain’t warm either.  we’ve started heating with wood in earnest, which is best on days we’re home, but great all the time.  a fire is like another family member.  sometimes they roar right to life–sometimes there isn’t enough kindling in the world.  sometimes they’re on FIYAH–sometimes you just can’t get the thermometer over 180.  sometimes it draws like a good pipe, and sometimes it fills your house with smoke.

always black-bottomed feet on the pop-nail hardwoods.

the routine is easier than i’d thought (or had been warned) it would be.   i get home from work around 6, poke the mostly extinguished coals, and build a dump fire (as in it doesn’t do much in the way of heating up the house, but it lays down nice coals for round 2).  ash bottom,  big logs bark-down, smaller logs, kindling, paper and cardboard on top.  dinner and some work and then i build fire #2.  this is where the temp hits 400 500 600 and the house starts to creak back to life.  floorboards pop and crack; the cast-iron kettle on top of the stove starts churning out steam.  the slate slab under the stove warms up, and i go there between paragraphs to stand and warm my feet.

another load of wood before bedtime (two if we’re night owls), then off to sleep.  at 4am someone’s alarm goes off–mine if i’m off the next day, stephen’s if he is, anybody’s if we both work–and more wood goes in.  there’s something really peaceful and satisfying (not dreadful and eye-rolling as expected) about the 4am fire.  it feels natural to have a break in my sleep (load the still-warm stove, bathroom, drink of water, get fire going with a few good puffs of breath) and there’s something deeply wonderful to me about knowing i get to hit the snooze for four more hours.

wake at 8.  another fire.  off to work.  i used to be terrified to leave the wood stove loaded when we both left.  now i wouldn’t do it any other way.  the furnace is probably more dangerous, truth be told.

we quickly learned, once we started this routine, that our bedroom (the one at the far end of the house with all the sunny windows) did not reap the benefits of the wood heat.  a box fan that hung by too-expensive but nonetheless-heretofore-unused baby alpaca yarn (i did give knitting a try, i swear) pulled the wood stove heat just far enough into the great hall that it wafted past the thermostat and kept the heat from kicking on.  this had the unwanted side-effect of actually making our back corner cold bedroom colder.

moving day, briz.

winter bedroom cave

we drug out a super-nice air mattress that we’d gotten for international company the year before, set it up in the loft over the kitchen, drug all of our piles of blankets up, and tucked into our new winter bedroom.  the space is just big enough for a queen bed, with a slanted roof and door to the catwalk on one side and a railing overlooking the kitchen on the other.  the huge brick chimney splits the difference and heats the room from floor to ceiling.  our winter nook stays so warm with the stove that we actually have to open the other upstairs door to siphon off some heat to the unused part of the house.  a fan at the top of the roof keeps things moving, and a humidifier in the corner keeps us from drying out like old bread.

it’s harder to wake up in the morning without all the windows, and it was harrowing at first going up and down the ship’s ladder in the kitchen for 4am fire-building, but i’m getting used to being cozy.  i’m sure this spring i’ll be happy to be back in the bedroom, where the morning sun is bright enough to give you a sunburn.

COMPANY.  we aren’t alone, that’s for sure.  tiny footprints and muzzle snuffles in day-old pans of bacon grease give away the house mice.  midnight rip-and-tear playing in the spaces between the ceiling and the tin roof betray our colony of squirrels.  there are  sometimes little pink puffs of insulation rolling around upstairs like tiny tumbleweeds.  when stephen got his suitcase from the upstairs closet, an acorn fell out.  pest control and two black cats are in our very near future.

BETTER COMPANY.  for the first time ever, we’ve been able to have a community of people enjoy our home.  (so long, apartment life!) this last weekend, tyler, beth, madeleine, shane, holly, and griffin came over and camped out.  there was homemade ramen with chicken-wild-turkey-local-ham-hock stock, there was lots of pegging (cribbage folks–jeeze), zilch, laser tag, movie-watching, coffee-drinking, fire-pit-sitting, red-wine-spilling fun.  saturday turned into sunday turned into monday morning.  there’s no finer thing in the world than having all of these people in my home.  not a goddamned thing.

SNOW.  we’ve had a bit of a reprieve so far this winter when it comes to snow.  our plow guy charges $60 a storm, and there have only been three–all of them a completely reasonable amount of snow. no 36-inchers yet.  our guy is good, which is a relief, and he clears all the way up through our dowah-yahd, not just to the end of the driveway, so the shoveling is easy.  the hardest things we have to shovel are the porch (which inevitably refills as soon as the roof snow comes crashing down) and the path to the woodshed and compost.  we bring in wood by the wheelbarrowful (thanks to shane’s sweet dumpster find!), and i think people would pay good money to see me ungracefully plowing through the yard with a load of wood, ramping the icy humps in the path and barely making the turns on one snowy front tire.  we keep a hoop full in the house most times.  today-me hates yesterday-me when i put it off and have to go get wood in the morning or in the dark after work.

FANCY SPRING PLANS.  i’m not for a moment wishing away the winter, but i have to admit i’m getting pretty excited about spring plans (for you alabama folk, i mean may/june, not march).  we’re getting early spring chicks from the farmer’s union.  they’ll live in a rubbermaid tub in our bathroom until they’re old enough to be outside.  eventually there will be all.the.eggs.  my veggie and herb gardens morph and grow in my mind every day.  i’m sure when it comes down to it, i’ll find that my eyes were bigger than my stomach and i’ll have to whittle down my selection of crops.  so it goes.  our yard is chock-full of saplings, so i’m building a wattle fence (thanks, youtube!) in a feeble attempt at keeping the wildlife out.  also building a 3-sided wattle structure to hold our compost, but not until the ground thaws.

there also will be goats, but not this year, tyler.

there will be bees at some point.  see me for sweet calendula salve when i have my own tiny beeswax factory.  come sit with me in my kitchen and enjoy hot tea with honey, and drink in the intoxicating sleepy-sweet smell of beeswax candles.  alas, those will not be for sale.

to be continued…