Shivering now

After a balmy October punctuated by just a few frosts, November is living up to its reputation. It is cold. It is windy. Yesterday when the boss was up in Johnstown picking up some heifer headlocks he bought it snowed. Excuse the shaky fingers, but the picture above is what this morning's "sunrise" looked like. (It seemed more like the backdrop for a Gothic romance than a sunrise to me).

So, of course last night the fire went out. I dragged poor Alan out of bed early to try to get it going, but the water temp was only 105 when we came in from milking. That does not translate into balmy indoor temperatures. I was up against the Farm Side deadline, so I really wanted to write rather than play Daniel Boone. However, you can't type when your fingers are shaking and you can't think during an environmentally induced brain freeze (with no ice cream in sight.) Therefore I hauled myself and a big stack of Country Folks, Lancaster Farming and assorted other newspapers, oh, and a box of matches, out to the stove in the yard. There I found, much as I expected, that the reason that we are cold is that we are burning huge, round, blocks of green maple. (I suspect it has something to do with certain people being busy chopping corn, but it is still absurdly cold inside). Unsplit, wet wood is about as easy to light as a pile of snow and gives off just about as much heat.

With a little help from the boss I got the sadly-smoldering, super-sized rounds of soggy wood close enough together to be kissin' cousins at least, piled on some shredded paper and waited. And waited.
He went off to feed the cows, while I watched not much happening. The thermometer crept up to 113, which is a long, long way from the stove's optimal operating temperature of 187. The wood kinda, sorta gave off a few anemic wisps of cool, yellow flame, but a conflagration it was not.

I was irked, not to put too fine a point on it, as I do like to make deadline and thus money. The Farm Side is sort of the meat and potatoes of my writing efforts (with Northview Diary being the gravy, the frosting on the cake, and a whole lot of fun). I make a serious effort to get a column in every week. This wood stove induced slow-motion frenzy of cold-fingered misery was not much of an asset to my work related goals.

Finally I went hunting small wood. There really isn't much left around the stove, as having to build frequent fires is not exactly a new issue. (I wonder if I could get frequent fire miles?) At first my efforts came up empty.

However, just behind the stove is an estimable pear tree, which weights itself down with fat, magical pears almost every summer. That sweet specimen of arboreal splendor had my interests at heart yet again. During last night's thundering November winds it dropped, not one, but two, gnarled, twisted, knotty branches. These branches were dry, crispy, and small enough for me to break up for kindling. Within a mere matter of minutes my fire was jumping and I was back inside at the computer typing, still with my hat and coat on, but with functional fingers and brain (or at least as much as usual anyhow).



Thank you pear tree. You look great in spring, you provide treats in summer, and you help us keep warm when the cold winds blow. What a friend!

Ap-pear-ent success!