There is a fire burning in the next room… A wood fire…. in the fire place, the hearth… the place for fires… in a brick fire place… a masonry fire place… This is becoming socially unacceptable… Fires give off “particulate matter”… soot and smoke… We have days when it is illegal to have a fire… We have “no burn days” I may object… I may burn… (wood)
Edward Abbey talks of throwing beer cans our of his pickup window… because he can… it’s not good for the environment… He does not defend the littering… but he understands the littering… It is of the environment… right for the place… and right for the person throwing the few beer cans now found rusting by the road side… this make sense to me… In the wilderness, trash is not the same as it might be in a different place… This is the West... I am of the West... This makes sense...
He describes a place in which there are few people, and much space… wide open space… a space where one might toss a beer can… might pee on a bush… defile the landscape, but not defile the landscape… the wide open landscape…
I don’t plan on throwing beer cans out of the Escape’s window… but I am building a fire… a big, roaring fire in the fire place… I may try to keep it going through Christmas… not the house museum Christmas, but the real calendar Christmas… December 25th…
Fire is important… it may define us as human… we have one burning on the hearth… It will continue to burn for the foreseeable time… the hearth fire which defines home (and hearth.)
Our fire place is made of brick, of masonry… it has mass… mass which absorbs and releases heat.. heat from a fire… a wood fire… a coal fire… the fire which defines…
The fire drives away the cold… it drives away the fog and damp… it creates a warm refuge… it creates home (and hearth)
Tomorrow we have the school classes visiting the house… 300 or more, maybe 600… then the weekend… 400 or so a day…. Then next week the Tiny Tots… lots of Tiny Tots… 300 three year olds with parents and sibs… Bring on the 3 year olds… I am ready…
Abbey would hide… I won’t
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