This is one of the woodstoves in the Wooden House. It’s right in the middle of the living room. I always liked this woodstove better than the blue one over by the dining room because it has a nice little oven at the top that you can open up and stick your hands in to warm them up. The doors to the oven are really squeaky and have cast iron knobs for handles. A fun game to play is seeing whether you can open the doors to the oven without burning your fingers. On top of the oven, there is a kettle with a spirally handle. I am not convinced that anyone ever actually used this kettle but, grandma probs has at some point. Probs before she got an electric kettle. She loves that thing and I hear that she has one in Rangelely now that has multiple temperature settings for different types of tea leaves. It is also fun to experiment with how hot the spirally handle on the kettle on top of the stove gets. The kettle usually has a few cobwebs built up on it. Behind the stove, grandma has a hoop for wood. Sometimes it’s full; sometimes it’s empty. If the latter is the case, we will bring a few loads of wood in from the front hall so there are enough logs to keep the fire going throughout the night and to light it again in the morning. The trouble is, once you bring wood in from the front hall, there is less wood in the front hall. This means you have to then restock the wood in the front hall. The things one will do for a woodstove.
Joe used dump yeast packets into gallon jugs of cider from Thompson’s Orchard up the road and sit them next to the woodstove until the jugs puffed up. Seems like a good idea to me. It’s a shame that I never tried it; I bet it was delish.
The lack of dryer in the wooden house means that the woodstove also functions as that. There is this very distinctive wooden coat rack thing next to the woodstove with balls poking out from all angles to hang stuff on. Grandma probs got it at Mardens or the Rangeley Walmart or something. It is often draped in underwear and socks and pants, along with hats and gloves that are wet from sledding or building an igloo.
It’s like a government mandate or something to stop to check the fire when you walk by the woodstove. Turn the knobs a little bit this way and that for no reason, take a peek inside to make sure the fire is still firing, maybe even put another log in. You know the drill. Grandma has a very precise system to figure out how much air she lets in through the dials, so she never really liked when I used to walk by and give them a spin for no reason.
Once you get that thing cranking, grandpa’s chair becomes a dangerous place. Sit there for 10 minutes or so and your face will be on fire and you will be dozing off and drooling on yourself.
Anyway, it’s a great woodstove and makes me miss the wooden house a lot. I really like the color of this print. It was originally supposed to be a burt sienna-type color, which didn’t really work out. But this is good too, although it is pretty similar to my Danny J Chistmas print. Mama and papa got me new ink though and I think it will be so much better so I am exited to try it out and experiment with new colors.