Thursday, January 25, 2007

Musings on the CabinDwelling Life, Part V:
Basking in the Warmth of a Wood Stove

Or, Fat, Happy, and Warm, Finally.

Happy and warm comes to us courtesy of the new Blaze King Princess Ultra* woodstove, which heats the leaky cabin so well that we no longer have to rely solely on fuel oil. The old stove, a Blaze King King, now sits there decorates the yard in all its defunct glory. But I have to ask, does the Blaze King company not make an intermediate step between the two? Is there no Blaze King Queen? Or would that sound too gay for the wood-burning demographic?

Well, the fat part speaks for itself. At the age of 36, there are times I begin to wonder about winter weight gain, meaning, damn, it's a lot harder to get rid of it. Maybe I ought to lay off on the Vitamin B.**

A special shout out to John Wilder, unparalleled firewood enthusiast and Alaskan-expat, now living down in that Other State. With no need to haul firewood, poor fellow.

I haven't had time for blogging at work lately, what with the actual work I've been doing. And free time (which means the weekend) has been consumed with that particularly rewarding pursuit: getting firewood.

Fortunately, some friends of mine offered FREE firewood that was sitting out on their property. It was seasoned and all, having sat around for a couple of years. However, like many things that are free, there was a catch, the catch being that it was a few hundred yards from the road, downhill, not on a trail, under snowdrifts. Over the course of a couple weekends, myself, the Original Savage and the Just Plain Savage took turns dragging it up to the truck with a sled.

And there were wolves. Packs of em'.

But despite our Doestoyevskian experience, there is now a nice pile of split wood in the yard. The Blaze King Princess Ultra is an efficient, clean-burning stove - and we now can claim another 2 CabinDwelling points for chopping wood and heating with it.

*Doesn't the name sound like it ought to be purple or something?
** Bacon! Or, maybe, beer. Same first initial, same effect.

1 comment:

Dan said...

Hello-
I read about your Blaze King Princess. How do you like it? How big is your cabin? Full second story or a loft? I am building a 24'x24' 3-sided log (10 inch logs from Delta!!) place with a second floor (not full, 4' walls and a cold roof). I am wondering if the princess will be too big for 900 or so square feet.
please reply to dannabbit@hotmail.com.

Thanks,

Dan