Make a Fire-It's so fun!

It's been cold. Very cold. I'm not used to it being so cold in early December. Couple that with the fact that we don't have central heat and with how busy I've been working, we haven't been outside much at all.

So today, we made a fire in the back yard. I took my wood scraps, and some paper towels that I had used to wipe the oil and beeswax polish off my toys. And I started a fire. It was wonderful. Even though, I was outside, I was warmer than I had been in weeks (at least at our house). Caleb was thrilled. He kept running to the fire, and then saying, "Okay, I'm going to have some more fun!" And he would run over to the hill beside the house and climb up and run or roll down. He didn't stay by the fire much, but it seemed like the fire's presence warmed him even though he wasn't sitting next to it like I was.

I sat on an overturned bucket and sanded bathtub animals and tended the fire. We were outside for hours. We even cooked our lunch on the fire. We cooked some vegetarian chili right in the can in the fire. When it started bubbling out the holes that I had stabbed in the top, it was done.

I lived my whole life in a house with a woodstove, and I'm glad that I don't have to sacrifice my love of sitting by a warm fire just because my house doesn't have a woodstove.