Rain, Wind and Woodstoves

The woodstove is a wonderful fixture of American history. Doubtlessly, Lincoln huddled up next to the family woodstove during those icy Illinois winters as he read the Bible and Shakespeare and all those splendid primers that have long vanished from our schools (along with any semblance of learning - what did the California superintendent of public schools just say? He's determined that students graduate from high school knowing how to read and write. High school... but, I digress). Settlers, trappers, ranchers - they all had their stoves, for January and February get pretty brisk out here in the west.

It's raining again here in northern California. The sky is lowering, determined to blot out all memory of the sun with its cold, grey clouds and equally determined to raise the river, perhaps out of jealousy of the sea which always meets the sky at horizon. Well, the river certainly is rising and it's still raining.

Thank God for woodstoves and a eucalyptus grove that keeps on giving. Well-cured eucalyptus burns hot and long in a damped down stove. We cut and split our own. I recommend the process if you have a decent chainsaw and either a strong back for manual splitting or a ram-driven splitter. My dad felled three over the weekend, put down successfully as opposed to a previous day last week when he put one right on the roof. Nothing damaged.