When I left Tennessee I broke up the trip in Ohio then drove on to Pennsylvania. I wasn't quite ready to integrate back into an office atmosphere or deal with my cat, roommate, or disaster of a bedroom, so I took M.'s Mom's earlier offer of a place to stay (made back in the summer) in the country outside Bethlehem. I had such a fantastic few days with M. and A. over the summer, that I knew that this was the perfect place for me to regroup. While the house has any number of pleasant rooms, I spent the majority of my time in the kitchen, stoking this wood stove.
I went to a local fancy grocery store and stocked up on non-essentials like mousse paté, Humbodlt fog cheese and cornichons. I also bought a lot of Bordeaux wine. Well, not such copious amounts as to be completely embarassed, but enough that to say 'a little' would be an utter falsehood.
If I could just tend other people's fires for a living, I really and truly would. Seriously. It was this great ever-present task to keep in mind as I went about my work day. This was, of course, made easier by S.'s excellent wood pile and my employer's flexibility with my location. These photographs were taken when I took a little too long to put a new log on top of the old coals...so I had to coax it a bit, which was part of the fun. I like to smell like wood smoke and curl up like a dog at the base of a wood stove. Things to know about me, I guess.
I went to a local fancy grocery store and stocked up on non-essentials like mousse paté, Humbodlt fog cheese and cornichons. I also bought a lot of Bordeaux wine. Well, not such copious amounts as to be completely embarassed, but enough that to say 'a little' would be an utter falsehood.
If I could just tend other people's fires for a living, I really and truly would. Seriously. It was this great ever-present task to keep in mind as I went about my work day. This was, of course, made easier by S.'s excellent wood pile and my employer's flexibility with my location. These photographs were taken when I took a little too long to put a new log on top of the old coals...so I had to coax it a bit, which was part of the fun. I like to smell like wood smoke and curl up like a dog at the base of a wood stove. Things to know about me, I guess.
2 comments:
What a gorgeous stove. Was the fancy green enameled stove still in your living room when you were big enough to have memories? Or had it been replaced? We spent a lot of time dithering with that stove when we were all much younger. And the little one in my dilapidated place down the road. I moved it to TN when we moved and I sort of thought of salvaging it but it was all rusted out. I toy with the idea of one here, in the den. We could really crank it up if we had one. And since it will be a righteous 17degrees tonight here, a fire in a stove would be a most delightful thing. Loved the tile work around your borrowed stove. Looks lovely and retains all that glorious heat. Cheese and wine, yep.
I remember very fondly a night decades (well, two, but still) ago where I was solely responsible for tending a camp fire.
Fires are magical. And for small fires this is true in a good way.
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