Quick and Easy Fire Starters or Boosters

We have lived with wood heat through 1½ winters, and I must say, I prefer it. As with anything, there are pros and cons. The pros for us definitely outweigh the cons though. There's nothing quite so comforting as the sound of the logs popping and the clicking of the cast iron as it heats up. And if you've never smelled walnut burning, you're missing out. It smells like Fruit Loops!
The first winter we lived here, in our cabin, we hadn't found a small enough stove, so we tried to get by with space heaters. The worst part was, we still had cold pockets all over the house. We lived in thermal undies and lots of blankets. Over $1000 combined heating bills later, we vowed that we'd have a stove by the next winter.
Last year was our first winter with wood heat and while my husband grew up with a wood stove, I'd never had one. He told me all summer how hot it would get and how we'd be cracking windows even in the dead of winter. He was right! I love how cozy the whole cabin is.
Our cabin is a rectangle and the stove is in the center on one wall. We played with a couple of box fans and learned that placing a fan at each end of the house, facing toward the center, seemed to pull the heat down from the lofts and kept both rooms (our bedroom and the bathroom) almost the same temperature as the living room. It's pretty awesome.
We are fortunate to live where we can find trees already fallen and seasoned, so with a family wood haul every other week, we are usually well stocked on firewood. It's a bit of work, but it beats buying firewood. All things considered, minus the cost of the gas for the chainsaw, we're heating for free.
So there's a bit of back story. As I mentioned, I'm a novice at this starting and feeding a wood stove. My husband is an excellent teacher, but we birth have our own unique ways of handling things. As I've tried (and erred), I've learned some tricks that help get and keep a hot fire going.
I tried using dryer lint in toilet paper tubes, but it seemed to me that they burned too fast and not hot enough. I have burned cardboard boxes, paper bags, all kinds of things to try to start a fire. Finally, I think I've got it!
One side effect of having firewood piled on the floor is the presence of wood chips, bark, etc. I am always sweeping up. Late one night, when I looked forlornly at the bits of wood in front of the stove, I decided to throw it into the fire. Woosh! It lit up like tiny little fireflies and breathed life into the dying coals. So naturally I wrapped it in newspaper and tied it with twine!
Now, rather than transporting the dusty wood bits to another surface, I just plop down on the floor with newspaper or phone book pages, scissors, twine and make a bunch at a time.
Just put 2 or 3 little bundles of potential under your sticks or kindling and light. Or, if you need to bring the fire back to life, put a bundle in with another log.

Granted, this may seem too simple to explain. However, I'm an experimental pioneer, so I thought I'd share in case anyone else could benefit from my limited experience.

I hope at least one reader has an "a-ha" moment. ☺

Life in a Cabin

I can't believe that we moved in just over 6 months ago. I can't believe that it has been over 6 months since I could string together more than a few sentences! So much has happened, and our lives were turned upside down for a bit, but now we have settled into a routine in our little cabin.
Cabin. That is what we have been calling it. When we were shopping for a building that would accommodate us, we looked at several styles. The designs varied from cabin, shed, barn, lofted barn, barn cabin, etc. In the end, we customized a side lofted barn, which only means a barn style roof and a side entry, as opposed to a door on either end. We could correctly call it a barn, but it doesn't sound quite as cozy. That is the best adjective for or new home. Cozy. It is small and we are never more than 38 feet from each other at any given moment. Many people don't understand what we are doing, and some even refer to our new home in less flattering terms, like shack, or shed. I have to bite my tongue and choose not to walk in offense. It is difficult, because the implication is hurtful. It is our chosen home, though. We planned and prayed, and this is what we decided to do. It is temporary, because the end goal is to build a house. That being said, people still think we're a little nuts. That is why they make thoughtless remarks. I get it. We are living the original American dream, not the dream of today. We are pioneering and carving out our dreams, walking in faith that they are within reach.
Today, one might say that the American dream is a job, a mortgage, car payments, 2.5 kids and a dog. That makes me laugh, just looking at it. We drive late model vehicles that we paid for in cash and our family of 6 lives in a cabin (lofted barn) while we work toward building a home paid for, again (hopefully), with cash.
It is a good life, though! We have new, different challenges from our old life. This winter has been a challenge. We have experienced a lot of snow, ice and sustained sub-freezing temperatures. When we lived in town, that might mean staying inside and enjoying a snow day. One of our newfound challenges was having animals outdoors. We had to not only build good shelter for all if them, but we had to go 2 or 3 times a day to check on them and often had to bring in water containers to thaw. It also meant we had large, concave ice chunks in the front yard where we threw them once the ice loosened from the edges of the water bowls. They looked like a bunch of tiny igloos!
At one point, our family vehicle needed some work and it was over a week, during the snow and freezing temperatures, that the kids and I were house bound. We had all we needed, but we did start to get a bit cabin fevered toward the end.
I smile about these "adventures" because I know that some day, we will sit around the dinner table in our house that we built and remember fondly, the days in our little cabin. Yes, it is a cabin, because I say so. After all, isn't a home what we make of it?

Welcome Basket

It used to be that, when a new neighbor moved in, someone designated themselves the welcome wagon. More recently, the welcome wagon might be something as simple as a knock on the door, polite but brief introductions and a basket of cookies or muffins. I like to imagine, though, that this tradition dates back to the pioneer days, when your nearest neighbor might be half an hour away on horseback.  In those days, you staked your claim on some land and planted crops or worked livestock, while living in a small cabin. It took many families years of working the land before they built a bigger home. So, if a neighbor came by, the offerings were probably more utilitarian, because new homesteaders wouldn't yet have a harvest of their own. I imagine that when you loaded up the wagon to drop in on the new family, you might pack a pie, some canned goodies like jam, maybe some roasted corn ears or some fresh bread and butter. Perhaps the women would chat about different fabrics or swap recipes, while the men might discuss plans for a barn raising. I think that in those days, it was not only good, but necessary, to know one's neighbors. They all valued good neighbors and people then were far more likely to share their time and lend a hand. That's at least how Laura Ingalls Wilder made it seem.
We are fortunate to have met some very good neighbors on one side and across the street. And, in the tradition of the welcome basket, my husband found a special surprise awaiting him at the gate on Friday. It wouldn't fit in a basket and it wasn't topped off with a bow, just a nice little note. It was one of the most thoughtful gifts I could imagine, though, given our endeavor. Sitting there, gleaming in the spring sunlight, was a brand new toilet. Yes, I said it - a toilet. This might seem very unconventional and it is probably the last gift anyone in polite society would consider, but I think our neighbors share our pioneer hearts, so they knew it would be perfect! The note was brief, stating simply that this was an extra and if we could use it, we could have it. I laughed out loud when my husband called to tell me the news. I said, "Thank you, Jesus!" because that was one less item that we had to purchase. If I had been given the choice between muffins and a shiny new toilet, I think I would have taken the toilet. So, now sitting just inside the door (though not there to stay) is our lovely, little throne. It is the first sign that our little barn is going to be our home. It makes it a little more real, a little more within our grasp. We may be pioneers, but there is a lot to be said for indoor plumbing!