Light a Fire

A cold front moved into northern California last night. Temperatures here dropped down into the upper 30's, and I expect low 30's and wind tonight.

I discovered last night that I need to go through the house and double check all the windows and doors and other such places where cold drafts can get in.

You see, the only heat source in the cabin (right now) is a free-standing wood fireplace or wood stove as some people call it. I loaded it up and made a downright nice fire last night (more on my issues with STARTING a fire another time), and had the house all nice and toasty warm before I went to bed around 9:30 or so.

I woke up at 4am for work, and obviously the fire had burned itself out. I'm not really sure yet how much wood I can load up into the chamber at one time, so I only put about 4 pieces of wood in before I went to bed. Maybe I can put more and adjust the air-thingy so it doesn't burn quite as hot, and lasts longer. I'll have to experiment with that. Oh wait, maybe I'll look it up on the Internet! Anyway.....

The cabin wasn't cold, but not really warm, either. It was just kind of a comfortable leaning toward cool. I had closed the bathroom door (since there's some obvious weather-leaks that need to be fixed in there), and when I walked in there I 'bout froze! Definitely need to get to work on those drafty areas soon.

But I'm relatively happy. The cabin was comfortable all night. I actually slept on top of my covers for the first few hours, and only pulled up the blanket at around 2am. I imagine keeping the cabin warm if one is home all day will be a simple matter of feeding wood into the stove at the right pace.

However, since I do have a dog and don't want to come home some day to a pup-sicle, I'm gonna get a free-standing electric heater from my niece. It's one of those new-style oil-circulating heaters that look like an old fashioned radiator. She says it kept the entire downstairs of her old house warm, and since my entire cabin will fit in one corner of her old house, I think it will be sufficient to keep the chill out of the air at my cabin. I thank her for that.

So, this weekend I've got my work cut out for me.