January 2, 2024
Day 823 of the Adventure
On the other hand, with a small cabin of 400 square feet, everything is different. The stove is smaller with no makeshift thermostat. These new stoves don't even have the capability of draft and damper controls. The best you can do is time out the size and type of wood to the relative outside temperature so you don't cook yourself on the one hand or leave yourself in an icebox on the other. "Cook" and "Icebox" are relative terms describing the difference between 60 degrees on the lower end to 80 degrees on the high end. So being "cooked" or "frozen" are not literal conditions, it only feels that way. The only real thermostatic control exists in the form of the indoor temperature either waking you or keeping you awake at night. Daytime really isn't a problem. The fact that the inside temperature dropping to the point where you are awakened by it usually indicates that it will take some time to bring the temperature back up to the point of comfort enough to eventually fall back to sleep. A two hour appropriate feeding of the stove will generally keep the temps within a 68-73 degree range that works really well. If you wait beyond that, time is not on your side for keeping the cabin comfortable. A fall-back system can be deployed to assist in the regulating of the stove output. It has to do with pressure. I suppose "hydraulic" pressure to be exact. This pressure is regulated by drinking a cup of tea, water or some other beverage in the proper proportion before bed. If you catch my meaning. If done correctly, it will produce an alarm of sorts that will prompt a two hour or so, feeding of the stove, among other things. It's a system of thermostatic and hydraulic controls that make the cabin life comfortable at night in the winter time.
Why all of the woodstove heat in the winter talk? I guess no big reason, other than this. Regardless of the gyrations one will go through to keep their cabin "just right" warm at night, there is another warmth that results. It's the quiet opportunity to tend your fire in the darkness. Something that has a peace and solitude associated with it. As the night air cools down to point of building the fire back up, I quietly step out the back door, gather a piece of two of wood, sit in front of the stove and add them. I remain as the embers begin to ignite the fresh wood fuel and begin to softly light the cabin in the glow of an indoor campfire. It's a routine I don't mind at all. A full night sleep has eluded me for years now anyway. Usually, the best I can hope for is somewhere between two to four hours at a time. Those awake breaks can be spent lying in bed looking into the darkness or spent sitting in front of the glass door of the stove for a few minutes, absorbing it's warmth and enjoying the spectacle of a nice quiet fire in the darkness of the cabin. It's not something I would want to do every night all year long. For the few winter months we experience here in the Ozark Mountains though, it's a worthy activity. One that I don't mind at all.
I guess I'll continue with the New Year updates tomorrow. There's a woodstove that needs tending.
Carry On
Adventure Quote: “Winter is the time for comfort, warmth, time spent beside the fire: it is the time for home.” ―
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