I don’t like that it’s getting cold, but I do like having a fire.
I write about this every year, I know. It’s not like Ellen Goodman writing her annual “how I love the simple life” edition of her column from her island summer home in Maine, however. It’s what you have to do to keep warm for nine months of the year.
This is the kiva fireplace about eight feet from where I’m sitting. It’s actually a terrible example, half-collapsed inside, with a badly-built flue that gives you trouble if the fire isn’t hot enough. It sucks all the warm air out of the house just to feed itself. It’s still lots better than just building a fire in the middle of the floor, and damn, does it ever look cute:
Fire in the mud
The only way this gets you warm is if you’re in a direct line with the glowing coals, or if you keep a roaring fire going (and I mean roaring) for several hours, which heats up all that adobe mass, and then you have a very effective room heater. You may be out of wood, but but that thing sits and radiates for hours. Obviously, the “airtight” (hahaha) Ashley in the adjacent saloon puts out more heat per load than any fireplace. You can’t watch the flames, though. A good fireplace fire is better than television.
One of the best times I ever had here by myself when my honey was living way up in Dubuque was on a particularly cold, depressing day in December. I was lonely, poor, and generally wretched, though still sufficiently possessed of self-respect to get in a little nurturing. After building a huge fire in the kiva, I turned off all the lights in the house and just sat there in front of the fire for what must have been several hours. All I did was watch, but that was enough. It grounded me. I was like every other guy who had ever crouched or squatted in front of a fire over all the millennia that had ever been, I realized, and then I wasn’t lonely any more.
Comment by Travis Stark
1 October 24, 2007, 7:11 am o'clock |
Why is it that I don’t think of New Mexico as cold? Here in the northeast it’s downright balmy. About 54 at the moment, but flurting with upper 60’s every day for the last few. People here complaining that global warming is messin’ with the foliage color (just not cold ‘nuf!), and them leaf peepers is big bidness don’t ya know.
I was complaining to the wife the other day that it’s cold here roughly 5 months of the year, November through March. She responded, “Ah yes, but that means it’s nice out for 7!” Right there is why I love her. If we hadn’t met I’d probably be dead or living in a cave.
Travis
Accidental Wisdom
Comment by K.J. Webb
2 October 24, 2007, 9:26 am o'clock |
Fires in almost any form - including the kind that burn down buildings and forests - feel good for the soul (perhaps less so if it’s one’s own or the public acreage undergoing incineration). Even there in San Diego right now, my niece tells me there’s a real sense of exhilaration. Maybe our nasty species needs calamity to unlock its frozen juices and help it get excited about being alive. Smoke and flame in however small a container have just that trifling bit of danger that makes them heady substances at any time. A danger to combat a danger - darkness, loneliness, rawness. We had a fire going on Padre Island back summer of ‘63. It helped us talk ourselves into having the guts to launch into the great world of adult miseries and triumphs that lay somewhere beyond the flames.
Anyhow, Johannes, your own contribution to global warming looks right cozy. Be nice to stand vigil around it with you some tempest-tossed evening, knock back a few shots of Tequila and let things rip.
Comment by John H. Farr
3 October 24, 2007, 9:40 am o'clock |
Actually, that wood fire doesn’t contribute much to global warming. Trees like the wood I burn are still growing, absorbing and trapping CO2. It’s a net wash. If I were burning oil, it would be a different story.
Travis, a great deal of New Mexico is warm and toasty, mostly from ABQ south. Up here in the north at 7,000 feet, things are very different. The cold snap we just had has let up, however. Today we’ll see a high of around 70 and a low around 30. That’s how it usually is, pretty much during all seasons too, with a temperature swing of around 40 degrees every day.
Even after 90 degree summer days (rare!), it gets down into the 50s and high 40s at night. We sleep under a down comforter 12 months of the year. During the winter it’s much colder, obviously, but with the intense sunshine, you can tolerate morning temps in the teens with surprisingly little fuss.