The Honest Courtesan

This is a brick of compressed peat; one of my readers sent me a big package of them for my stove.  I burned a couple of them on Little Christmas while taking down the tree; Grace was nearby fixing the log-splitter, because the bearings seize up from our damp weather when it hasn’t been used in a while.  Learning how to get the most heat out of our stove has been a process; I’ve only ever had a conventional fireplace, and while Grace has had a wood stove before, this design is different from older models to make it legal to sell in Washington state.  It’s supposed to have something to do with air quality, but it makes the thing harder to get going and slower to heat up.  If I had a lot of well-seasoned firewood it wouldn’t be as bad, but I dropped the ball on collecting that during the summer, so now everything I bring in is a bit damp.  It doesn’t seem to matter much once the fire is going good and hot, but getting to that point is a process; hence getting the log-splitter in shape again, and using fuels that burn hotter (like peat) to get the stove up to proper operating temperature.  Grace has designed a press to make articial firelogs out of scrap cardboard (which we always have plenty of), but that won’t be built for a while yet so those will be helpful next winter, but not now (ditto lots of wood I plan to start bringing into the garage in the spring).  So as of right now, the stove does help warm the atrium, but I think next winter it’ll be much better.