Stacking Wood, Buying Fuel, Getting PelletsThe first rule of evolution...adaptation is the key to survival.
Three cheers for Darwin … I've been given another chance to survive.
Heather McKeown
East Berkshire, VT
When I got my first Vermont job, I was given a nice little house, $150.00 a week, all the milk my little family could drink and half a cow a year to eat. It was all more than enough. In fact, after buying all the weekly groceries at Deuso's General Store, there was enough left over for Friday Night Treats. A six-bottled carton of Molson Golden for my former farmer boss, goodies for the young 'uns and I'm sure I picked out something wonderful for myself, too.
I started the job on November first. We'd been transplanted from Tulsa, Oklahoma, where my blood had gone from hardy northern sludge to some sort of diluted, weakened liquid hardly worthy of bodily support. In short, I was finding the weather at the farm less than conducive to shorts and a tee-shirt. In other words, I was freezing ALL the time for that first winter. Yet, it sure could have been a lot worse. My cousin's suggestion and my boss's generosity made for a pretty comfy farmhouse, that's for sure.
My former farmer boss's father was retired but stayed super-busy with mechanical tinkering and driving tractors. One day, I noticed he was throwing wood into the cellar of the house-that-went-with-the-herdsman's job. Good. Heat. How nice of him to do this for us, I thought.
About two weeks into this career, my children and I awoke to find the house mighty cold. I mentioned this when chores began and was asked, “Well, did you let the fire go out?”
“What fire?”
“The fire in the stove in the cellar!”
“I've never even been in the cellar but the house has been plenty cozy until this morning. Your father's been doing it, I think.” ventured this hapless herdsman.
My boss was, after two weeks, just happy I showed up in time for chores but had already realized that I was not good at very much at all. Learning to be a farmer takes time and two weeks wasn't enough for me, even though I was and am genetically predisposed to agricultural life. When he wasn't questioning his own sanity for hiring a city-girl he was trying very hard not to give up on me.
After chores, over to the house went my boss. I stood stupidly looking down cellar. He stayed down there for a couple of minutes, I figured the first one was spent figuring out how to kill me and the second minute was the time needed to come to his senses. Once he surfaced, he, very calmly asked, “Have you been burning oil?”
“No. Your father's been coming over and putting wood in the stove, I guess.”
“No. My father's been stacking wood in your cellar. YOU'RE supposed to put it in the stove. You've burned a whole tank of oil is what you've done and it's ONLY NOVEMBER!”
Well, my cousin, Ronnie, came down from Montreal to check out the house, my children and me. He then went over to the boss and suggested that he either give me enough time off to keep the fire stoked or pay for oil. The Blouin's truck came the next day and coziness reigned. Nobody gets too much time off on a farm, my friends, and I was a slow-poke so couldn't really quit the barn whenever the smoke coming out of the chimney looked peaked.
Then we moved two miles up the road to East Berkshire. In the new abode, there was electric and oil heating units and a wood stove in the living room. I traded out massage therapy for firewood in lean times (all times were that way, back then) and Blouin's filled up the tank now and then. I decided early on that heating only the room with the wood stove was practical and I told Holly and David that we were 'camping'. The sectional couch was perfect for two little ones and a short mom. I'm hoping they remember these cozy times, someday, when they want their own offspring to know what the olden days were like.
Ahh, but decades pass. Wood stacking becomes more difficult. Schlepping it becomes less romantic. Keeping the home fires burning loses it's appeal when it's always 36 degrees in the kitchen come morning. The highest it ever got in here with oil AND wood heat was 56 and that's FAHRENHEIT! So many of my friends from away would venture for a visit come foliage season. Coincidentally, my firewood would be delivered and dumped here around that time. My friends and cousins were always thrilled to be a part of the stacking process if they were around. I was grateful, too. My former farmer boss would always note things worthy of respect. One of them would be to say, “That's a nicely stacked cord of wood.” I realized that pride in a good stacking job meant earning the respect of the Vermonter. I strove for that when I piled the wood but I'd never make All-Star stacker for all my efforts. So, getting help was kind of nice back then.
A couple of years ago we put a pellet stove in the kitchen and another in that slumber spot of a living room. Now, the only wood I use is for the bonfires out back. Gee, how strange.
McCuin's brings six thousand pounds of pellets and we stack 40-pound plastic bags. Not at all romantic. Not at all reminiscent of the good times and patience shown to me when I first arrived in Vermont. I've decided that I miss heating with wood. I started the pellet stove for the first time all season, just a few hours ago. The kitchen was 52 degrees when it came on and now it's 68. I guess that's the trade off. Romance and nostalgia for heat. Blouin's is still in the picture, too, thank heavens, but nobody's called to see if I need help with my wood for the past two years. Word's out that I'm on a new rung of the evolutionary ladder of warmth. Too bad, because those were good times.
Maybe I can employ some of the humor my former farmer boss taught me. I could call all my flatlander friends, tell them that my pellet logs are being delivered on a 40-foot flatbed and, not only will I need help stacking 'em, but maybe they should bring steak knives so we can cut 'em down to size. Wonder if they'd bite? I know, before I moved onto that farm, some 25 years ago, I would have believed this scenario to be the true depiction of 'roughing it' in the Green Mountain State. Humor. Hard work. Laughter. Patience. Neighbor helping neighbor. How you heat being the biggest part of our conversation at this time of year. Stay warm—even if only in one room. It's just so good to be in Vermont, no matter what the temperature, eh?
Thanks Heather
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