First off, I wanted to let everyone know that my grandmother is doing well. I talked to her yesterday and she sounded in high spirits. She said she felt great. So thank you all for your thoughts and prayers.
Now, as I mentioned, my hubby has been out of town since Sunday. You might imagine that my biggest challenge would be getting the kids to church by myself, or getting them to quiet down at night, or cooking dinner with a 13-month-old baby hanging on my legs. But no, the biggest challenge has been the coal stove.
You see, we have a coal stove in the basement which does probably 80% of our heating. The only electric heaters we use are in the upstairs bedrooms. But the stove takes a lot of tending. Six or eight times a day, we have to shake the ashes out of the bottom so the fire can breathe, and then add more coal. When the ash tray fills up, it needs to be emptied. And all of this must be done correctly or the fire will go out. And may heaven help you if the fire goes out, because it takes a couple of hours to get it going again.
So I have been keeping the stove going since Sunday. The problem I'm having is that when hubby shakes the ashes down, it usually takes him about twenty seconds. It's been taking me five minutes. Five. Minutes. My arm is sore from banging the handle up and down, and I'm getting blisters on my hand. You have to shake the thing until you see hot coals fall through the grate, and it takes me that long to see any coals.
I tell you what, I have gained an extreme appreciation for hubby's role in heating our house every winter. I hope the next time he goes out of town is after it's warmed up outside, because frankly, I might just let the thing go out next time and make everyone wear sweaters and gloves around the house until he gets home. Yeah, it's that hard.
Now if you'll excuse me, I've gotta go shake my grate thing.
Ah, I feel your pain! We have a wood burner that is attached to our furnace. While, emptying the ashes is a once a day thing, loading the wood up every couple of hours suck. We also hate when the fire burns out. It also takes a couple of hours to get it going. It shouldn't, but our wood is only partially dry. So, that makes a huge problem.
ReplyDeleteThe Deputy and I take turns with the wood burner duties. Though, he tends to do more than me. Sometimes I think of the Pioneer days and wonder how I would have survived!