The Value of a Woodstove (and a wife who insists on having one)

We awakened Friday morning to discover our propane furnace had gone out. With temperatures in the twenties, and snow on the way, it was an enormous relief to know we had a woodstove in the kitchen---and a good supply of firewood outside. It was something my wife had insisted on, and which we'd installed a few months after moving in. As I built a fire, and felt the heat slowly fill our frigid house, I made a mental note to tell her "thanks."

We got the stove from Lehmans, a supplier of non-electric products. The stove itself was made by an Amish farmer, and is not much to look at, but it puts out enough heat to keep the house comfortable in the dead of winter---and we do cook with it. The oven is especially nice for roasts and other dishes which don't require a precise temperature.

As I returned to the house from doing the morning chores, there was nothing quite as beautiful as the sight of smoke curling from the oven's smokestack.

Oh - we did get the furnace back on line Saturday morning. In the city, it probably would've taken days to have gotten someone out to look at it. Around here, we've gotten to know a local independent plumbing/heating/cooling contractor personally. We called him, not some faceless company selected from the yellow pages. He was able to shuffle his schedule for us, diagnose the problem, order the new part, and get it installed within 24 hours of our call. That's one of the things we like most about living here.