All We Need Is Kindle-ing To Get A Cozy Kitchen.

At last our wood burning Aga-like stove is working.

Of course we have our pellet oven, but having a second source of warmth in a big house never hurts. As you know, we've schlepped an abandoned old wood burning stove from the barn into our kitchen. A kitchen where we luckily have a second chimney connection.

The last bits, which always turn out to be the necessary bits, finally got completed yesterday and I managed to cook a pumpkin soup on it. Bob and I had a few close domestic shaves this last week leading up to it:

" This pipe goes this way and don't wriggle the stove too much! "
" If you think you can do it better, be my guest!!! "

...I'll let you figure out who said what.

My mum, the life saver, came over to help us get it done and she did. She knows we have the wood, but knowing us (!) also brought along one lot of kindling and a sort of fuel soaked brickette. Two items vital to get a fire started..

Yeah, family is here for a visit and the whole troupe of us went out for a Buschenschank meal to Bruni's. We didn't stay late and got home at about half past six, and as we were out for about three hours, the fire decided to emulate us.

In our euphoric state ( having another stove & having had a taste of Bruni's Schapps ) we decided to relight it tout-de-suit. Actually, I asked Bob to light it and I realized by the strong language coming from the kitchen, that it wasn't that easy to light a fire...again the sentence of

" If you think you can do it better, go for it! "

was echoing about in the kitchen.

I have to say, that Bob is tenacious and after a few more tries ( without kindling ) he got the fire going. Lovely to feel that warmth coming from the kitchen and even our cat chose to plonk herself down under it. Bob does have a few reservations about having this hot stove in the kitchen regarding our cat, but she will only touch it once...

Fast forward to this morning and I have to do a bit of apologizing to Bob as I have found out that it is far from easy to light a fire without kindling and so forth. In fact, darn impossible when you see the size of our wooden logs.

Today, Bob can axe a whole lot of kindling and get our Aga stove going whenever we want. By the way, before you judge us for being for want of a better word, clueless, try and get a fire lit in a small stove without kindling etc...

Biggi