firewood | Gladsome Lights

Yesterday I made a successful cake in my Nordic Ware honeycomb pan. My first attempt a couple of weeks ago didn’t work out; it was a honey-and-lemon cake recipe not designed for the pan. There wasn’t enough batter to fill it properly, so the pieces of cake that were supposed to be pull-apart on a plate, instead fell apart coming out of the pan, having no foundation, you might say.

I put the lemony glaze on some of them anyway, and gave most of the little ragged pieces away.

This week I found an earring that I had given up for lost forever, so I decided to bake a cake in honor of St. Phanourios. I noticed that the recipe called for three cups of flour, and that is the amount I had deduced I needed for a honeycomb cake, so I tried it in my pan, and it came out perfect. I substituted honey for the sugar, because I want every cake I bake in this pan to honor the honeybee in every way. I was going to a study on the book of Romans at church last night, preceded by a potluck, so I took my cake to share.

Today I had a load of firewood delivered, half a cord only. Last December I had bought a whole cord, and we used most of it. I don’t know why I didn’t do that again… some deep psychological reason, I’m sure, having to do with — what else? — this remodeling project. The electricians were working upstairs all day, by the way.

I didn’t have a plan for who would stack my wood. In the back of my mind I had the idea that I might just cover it with a tarp right there in the driveway because anything beyond that was too much to think about. But it wasn’t raining, so I thought I might as well put a few logs where I wanted them before covering it. I carried some into the house, filled up the wood rack in the garage, began a neat stack in the utility yard… and before long, I had stacked it all! I had also covered the stack outside with a tarp, and swept up the driveway. And it only took two hours. Just as I was finishing I felt some raindrops on my head.

Truly cold weather isn’t forecast to return as long as the rain is hanging on,
but when we’re ready to get cozy by the wood stove, we’ll be ready!

When winter is in the air, what is the important thing to do? Lay in a supply of firewood.

We live in a drafty house, but thank God, we have a good wood stove and we don’t have many days that wood burning is banned. Last year I broke the law (isn’t it unconstitutional anyway?) a couple of times when I really needed that cheery fire to make the “barn” a hospitable place. We are on the fringes of the area where wood smoke is a problem, so I like to think it doesn’t actually apply to us.

Yesterday we got a big load of fuel delivered, and P. was around to help carry and stack.

When we do get temperatures that make us turn on the furnace, my chore time will shift from gardening to fire-tending. It’s my job to build the fires and keep them burning. And if I don’t, my phlegmatic self becomes more so, and the urge to climb in bed with a book just to warm the bones presses on my mind.

Mr. Glad found one log that was particularly curvy and pretty.