Homeland Security

Now this is a feeling of security.

Our woodstove is our main source of heat and we have a small but efficient one that works beautifully. We had a fair amount of dry wood stored and ready but not enough to get us through the long, cold months of winter, so we have been loading in some new wood this week.


Wood pile maintenance - it is an art. It is an art I have been mastering these many years as I have shift this pile around the basement more times than my back cares to remember.


They say wood warms you three times: first when you cut it down, second when you stack it, and third when you burn it. I would venture to say that some of these logs, or junks as they are called locally, have warmed me about a dozen times. But look how beautiful they are. Precious, precious wood!

The last two times I moved the pile, it was so that we could have some work done in our basement. The basement was dug under our house after we bought it in 2002. The house was built without a foundation and, many decades later when we found it sitting empty, it was slowly but surely sinking into the ground and starting to rot. Given that state, and the state of the windows and the near total lack of insulation in the walls, I shudder to think what winters were like in this house in years past. Actually, having met and spoken with many people who spent winters in this house, I know what they were like. They were cold!

In any case, a basement was dug and a beauty it is. It sat, holding its potential like a pearl in an oyster for years. Finally, we had the money and the good luck to convince the best carpenter in Newfoundland to come out and frame out what will be a guest room and some clean storage space. He put up the drywall and installed flooring.


Now it's my turn to begin taping and plastering. Then a ceiling and doors will be installed and soon enough we will have a place for visitors to lay their heads.

Was that an invitation? I think it was.