With me getting up around 5 AM on these cold winter mornings, I have been more motivated than ever to truly learn how to get a fire going in our wood stove.

Growing up, I’ve been around fires and wood stoves, but I’ve never really been at a place, or should I say, “willing” and motivated learn about “all things fire” until now.

There’s a lot to starting one, and there’s a lot to bringing the hot coals out of their “slumber”… This morning when I opened the stove to see if there was anything happening in there I saw the glowing coals and I knew I could do something with that. I stirred them up a little bit, added some pieces of kindling and a couple of small logs in there, opened the things I needed to open on the stove to let air in and here came this rushing “whoosh” sound –a flame ignited, bringing fire to our stove.

The other day I kept hearing the word “ignited” and then later I heard someone else mention it and I’ve been thinking of it since, and this morning even more as I saw the fire “ignite” in my wood stove and I thought about it some more.

Thought I’d look it up just for fun…

ignite

-catch fire or cause to catch fire, to start burning, burst into flames, combust, explode, light, set fire to, set on fire, set alight, kindle, spark, put a match to, arouse, kindle, trigger, instigate, excite, provoke, stimulate, animate, stir up, whip up, rally, jump-start, incite, fuel

antonyms:

-dampen, go out, extinguish

I’ve also found that the logs need to be conditioned or as they say, “seasoned” to be able to burn well and really get a fire going. If they are too green or damp, if they’re not split well enough… if they’re not in the right condition the fire will often ignite around them, but the fire won’t really get going and create and maintain the heat in my stove.

I’m really not a fire expert by any means, so I don’t know why I decided to write about this stuff this morning. Very strange for me. I guess I’ll become an expert before long.

I used to be afraid of fire, you know. (I know, surprise, surprise *eye roll* haha) and I also wasn’t allowed to have a candle in my room growing up. Me and fire were not friends back then.

Have you ever said, “that would never be me” or “I would never see myself doing that”? Oh there were so many things I would have applied those sayings to. I’ve said a few of those before. Be careful.

Funny how things change. When we let go of holding onto those ideas we have about ourselves, how the things we do or enjoy can change so much.

Life can become unexpected and surprise you sometimes. It’s not a bad thing. 🙂

–Heather