My husband always puts kindling in the fireplace before we go to bed at the cabin.
We aren’t in the cabin all day, and a little bit of morning heat goes a long way, so we light the fireplace in the morning, and let it slowly burn out.
A couple of days ago we were at the cabin doing some preparations for Christmas. We knew we had two months before Christmas, but we had to make sure everything was in working order. The first thing we did was clean the chimney, and then the fireplace and hearth. After we completed the most important things on our list, we patched some shingles that came off the roof, and started working on the inside. All of the rooms needed to be aired out and cleaned. We figured that over the next five weeks, before the holidays began, we would spend every weekend cleaning and decorating, before family started arriving. We spent the entire holiday season in our cabin, entertaining family and friends, and readying for Christmas, which was the climax to our holidays. Last weekend, we knew we were in for a rough weekend. They were calling for snow showers in that area. My husband brought wood onto the porch and had it sitting out there in the wood bin. There was enough to get us through the entire weekend, but he hadn’t laid kindling in the fireplace. It was twenty-two degrees when we woke up, snow was piling up outside, and the wood for the fireplace was wet. It was going to take a bit of coaxing before we got any heat from the fireplace.