Such is Life (the French say it better)

The fire burning season inside the shack is drawing to a close.  Soon I’ll just turn on the electric space heater for twenty minutes or so and the chill in my small room will be gone.  But beginning in early fall until well into spring I build a fire most every day.  I have a wood burning stove, the Sardine model, built by Marine Stove Works out on Orcas Island, in the San Juan chain off the Pacific coast of Washington.  My Sardine stove was originally designed for the snug small spaces afforded cabins below deck on sailboats.  They also make larger models:  the Little Cod and the Halibut.  I’ve found the Sardine is sized perfectly not only for sail boats but also for tiny buildings like my backyard shack, where I do my writing.  I turn on the computer, and while it boots up and comes alive I start a fire in my stove.

If I have gotten a good start the sun is not yet up.  By the time I begin to feel the heat from the stove light breaks through the trees in the ravine.  I always pause to watch the sunrise, and that is usually when I pray.  Not long or complicated prayers, but rather silent thoughts unspoken and unrehearsed.  I check in, so to speak, with something other than myself. I work hard to make those thoughts the truest and most honest of each day.

When I remember I ask for paper bags at the grocery store.  The brown paper from half a bag is just the right amount in the stove.  On top of that coarse paper I place soft wood like pine, cedar if I have it, something small and dry.  In a pinch I use small thin pieces of oak, a hardwood.  I try to start the fire with one wooden match.  On the farm we called those phosphorous tipped wooden sticks kitchen matches.  My Dad lit them by dragging them quickly across the leg of his overalls.  When we burned the trash for Mom we scratched them into flame against the backyard burn barrel.  You can strike them anywhere.

 

I’m still using a box of 250 Redbird matches I brought back from a fishing trip to Ontario which are strike anywhere matches.  Because they are sold in Canada their description is also printed in French: Alumettes qui s’allument partout.  The good American strike anywhere matches I used to purchase, Ohio Blue Tips, I no longer find in the store and those that remain, at least at my grocery, are made so that the user must strike them on the box, which I won’t do.  I have a matchbox holder on the wall like we used to have on the farm.  It holds the opened box and I take matches from it.  If I can’t separate the matches from the box I won’t buy them.  It’s supposedly a safety measure.  I think that’s bullshit.

I strike the match on the arc of the rim that holds the round stove lid.  I find if I strike the match and put it immediately inside the stove it often goes out.  The draw on my little stove, even though it has only a 4” stovepipe, and the chimney is up against the tree line fronting the ravine, is good and strong, strong enough to extinguish the match.  So I usually let it burn outside the stove for a moment or two, the flame working itself down on the matchstick, getting bigger.  Only then do I reach the match inside the stove and light the brown paper, touching a single ragged edge I’ve left sticking up for that purpose.  On a good day that’s all it takes.  I turn to my computer and keyboard and wait to hear the crackle of the kindling burning before I add chunks of oak.

Oak is my main fuel.  While I split it and cut it to fit my small stove I admire the oak’s dense and beautiful grain.  Oak burns long and hot while the soft wood, the pine and cedar kindling, flares and fades quickly.  When I have a good strong fire, or later a bed of hot coals, I can add as many chunks of oak, as big as will fit in the stove, as I choose.  On those good days one match is all that’s needed for fire and warmth all day.

Unless I hurry.  There are mornings I misjudge or pay little attention to the size of the kindling I use.  I put in wood that’s too big, using whatever is immediately at hand.  In that case I have a dandy paper fire, which burns out from under the wood but does not catch fire and burn because the sticks are of a size that requires more heat than the paper provides.

   

Or I neglect the air.  There is a small wheel on the side of the Sardine that opens and closes the air intake for the stove.  When starting a fire, the air intake should be wide open to let as much air, and oxygen with it, as possible.  Later when the fire is established and hot, the air can and should be throttled, shut down, to let the fire ebb a bit, burn the wood slower, conserving fuel but still producing plenty of heat.  If I fail to open the wheel in the morning, from its closed position when I left the previous day, my first morning fire suffocates, strangles from a lack of air, goes out, dies.  In either case, whether improper fuel or lack of air, there are mornings when I slowly realize I have no fire at all.

By that time I’m writing.  If the crackling of the stove doesn’t alert me to add wood I keep working until it dawns on me the shack, and me with it, are cold.  I remove the lid from the stove and discover I have to start over.  Damn it anyway.

You might think I would learn from my mistakes and not repeat them.  That seems likely doesn’t it?  But I don’t.  I could split the wood into smaller thinner pieces with my cleaver on a log inside the shack beside my stove, so that I have a ready supply of kindling for the next day, but I often don’t.  Instead I hurry.  I could check the air intake every time I build a fire but some days I ignore it.  I can’t be bothered.   On those days I have to build a fire twice.  It continues to escape my mind that building a fire, like cooking, writing, forming and nurturing relationships, and other endeavors cannot be hurried.  Many things require not only the necessary elements like fuel, air and flame but also an amount of time and attention that cannot be lessened or hurried.

Sometimes I pray I won’t forget the lessons I learn.  But invariably I do.  As they say in parts of Canada and elsewhere, C’est la vie.