|
Voices of Spencer Creek
Joy of Living: Fireglow
The fireplace holds so many memories-- of trips to the autumn woods, cold wet days staying snug with a good book, family holidays and those beloved souls no longer with us...
By Edie Self
Posted on Oct 17, 2006 |
Email this article
Printer friendly page
|
It has come to this. Thirty-three years ago--this month for sure, maybe today?--I moved to this house. Today I gaze at the beautiful fire (oops, it just went out with a pop!) before me, with such gratitude for its warmth on this first blustery day of almost-fall. And I remember...
So many years of burning fires, big fires to warm the whole house--this fireplace is the central heat. Learning the quirks of this particular fire--beware of smoke from the right front corner--too easy to get some in the house, especially on a really windy day.
Trips to the woods to bring home oak...the best for those cold season fires, real overnighters; but we also brought home that pesky "beggar's lice"/cleavers, which the cats eventually spread all over the place!
So many memories of friends, family, Christmas stockings, buckets of ash for the lawn or the compost pile--irises seem to love ashes, rhododendrons don't. The screen, originally a really nice one, brass, with good fine mesh screen, but latterly held together by wire hinges that left a potentially dangerous gap. Remember when Charlie "wrote" on the screen with modelling clay, and I never quite got all of it off?
After thirty years, I became physically unable to feed the fire. Ashes in the house, and the mess of bringing wood in, created a real problem. I covered the opening and abandoned the fireplace. Candles on the hearth gave a sense of center, light and heat, but electric space heaters were inadequate to truly warm me or the house.
Last winter I had a gas insert installed. Me--the woman who grew up cooking on a wood range, in a house heated by that and a fireplace! And I'm glad I did! Now, I can gaze into the flames even when the lights go out, and the thermostat (!) makes the fire go on and off to keep an even temperature, even while I'm gone for hours!
I can sit in my favorite chair and start the fire with the push of a button, and put it out as easily. My fire glows in the room--it is really flames! The bricks of my beautiful fireplace, warm from the fire, radiate welcome heat into the kitchen too, since the 45 degree angle into the living room leaves the rounded back of the fireplace exposed to the kitchen--a wonderful central design. The fireplace insert salesman and installer both fell in love with the curved end of the bricks, a lovely job done long before I arrived here.
Once again, my home has a central fire, a hearth to welcome me and my friends to a comfortable, cheery home. It may be different, it may lack the hiss and spark of wood fires, but it is warmer, less drafty, and oh-so-easy to run. I am so grateful for this low-maintenance, high-return option at a time when energy conservation (my own, that is) is a real issue in my life.
It has come to this, and I am glad. Think I'll turn it on again now. :) And I did!
Edie Self
Late September, 2006
Copyright ©2006 by Edie Self
Our grateful thanks to the dear Readers who sent in the Humming Bird images. Sadly, we can not reproduce them in this program. Thank you all, especially Mary.
Ms. Self, an occasional contributor to these pages, grew up on the sunny side of Spencer Butte and is a member of the Spencer Butte Writer's Group. Visit the Joy of Living stories and poems by Edie Self at West By Northwest.org:
Joy of Living: Hummingbird Rescue
Two Spring Shorts from the Spencer Butte Writers Group
Northwest Bloomin' Useless
Curtains in the Wind
One Early Harvest
Wash Day for Robins
The Sunnyside of Spencer Butte: Two Winter Tales and Birding on the Butte
Summer at Grandma's
© Copyright 2000-2006 by West By Northwest.org
Top of Page
untitled
|
