Wood Stove

by Heidi Barr

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

excerpt from Woodland Mantiou by Heidi Barr

Two weeks ago, a lanky man and his assistant rambled up to the house bearing silver stove pipes and ladders and left two hours later as we gazed at our newly installed wood stove. We got it from a guy across the river that didn’t need to have it around and was willing to let it go for a reasonable price that included dropping it off in our garage. After living for all of my adult years without wood heat, having a stove in the middle of the living room feels a bit like returning to home soil after a long journey away. I grew up in a house that was heated exclusively by a wood stove, and I didn’t realize how much I’d missed the company of slowly burning logs until I invited them back into my daily life. And with it has come the task of operating the wood stove—something that Dad always did when I was growing up, and his administrations of which I look back on now wishing I’d paid closer attention.

There’s a bit o…