{"id":3902,"date":"2020-09-03T17:12:36","date_gmt":"2020-09-04T00:12:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/?p=3902"},"modified":"2020-09-03T17:12:36","modified_gmt":"2020-09-04T00:12:36","slug":"september-fires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/archives\/3902","title":{"rendered":"September Fires"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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wood shed door <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Yes, it does feel somewhat odd to be building fires in the woodstove in early September when much of California is literally on fire and inland temperatures are over 100 degrees. But here on the Mendocino coast we\u2019ve been cloaked in fog, cold fog, for five days and counting. We heat our house with a woodstove, and after shivering for a couple days in deference to the plight of those living inland, I resumed building fires in the woodstove so the air inside our house would be warmer than the frigid air outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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approaching the shed and drying soft wood<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Our wood shed is about a hundred feet from my office door through which I will bring in the kindling to start the day\u2019s fire. In the winter I have a stack of kindling at the ready on the north porch, but since this is not usually the time of year we have fires, right now I\u2019m making kindling as needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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last of the bull pine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The wood shed is currently empty save for a few dozen pieces of soft wood I\u2019m turning into kindling to start these end-of-summer fires. In another few weeks, I\u2019ll begin bringing in wheelbarrow loads of seasoned softwood and tan oak and fill the shed completely, approximately five cords.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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before<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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after<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The firewood I\u2019m making kindling from came from a mostly-dead 150-feet-tall bull pine we had felled three years ago. We hired a couple expert tree guys to bring the giant tree down and thereby ended the threat the tree posed to three neighboring houses. We were greatly relieved to have that tree down, and so were our neighbors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Defer bucking up bull pine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Our neighbor Defer bucked the bull pine logs into 16-inch long rounds, which I then split into firewood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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kindling on the hearth<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Once I have enough kindling chopped, I bring the sticks inside and set them on the hearth while I crumple up fire-starting paper and toss the paper into the woodstove. I\u2019m currently starting our fires with old income tax stuff we hung onto for the requisite years, old bills and bank reports now serving to keep us warm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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ready to light<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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the match is struck<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The house grows warm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Broke My Heart<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes, it does feel somewhat odd to be building fires in the woodstove in early September when much of California is literally on fire and inland temperatures are over 100 degrees. But here on the Mendocino coast we\u2019ve been cloaked in fog, cold fog, for five days and counting. We heat our house with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6077,6074,6076,6073,6075,9,33,6072],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3902"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3902"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3914,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3902\/revisions\/3914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}