I have recently re-acquired my acquaintance with fire. In a manner of speaking anyway. As some of you know, I bought a cord of firewood right after the first of the year. Propane being rather expensive right now, I threw caution to the wind and said, what the heck, we will light a fire to help heat the house.

I should have realized, but perhaps had forgotten, that I would also be embarking on a physical fitness regime. By default. Sort of.

Today, for a brief while, I achieved 'F I R E P E R F E C T I O N'. My fire crackled, it hissed, it lovingly flowed over and under the assorted logs, flames dancing along the entire length and breadth of each log.

But believe me when I tell you, Fire Perfection does not come easy. I often wonder now, daily almost, how fire can start unaided and burn a house down, yet, I struggle and struggle each day to get one started and keep it going. Boggles the mind, doesn't it?

My grandparents always heated with wood, and I was the firetender. I do know a good bit about how to build a fire and keep it going. Good thing too. Trust me on this.

First, I had the wood delivered. In a pile. A rather large pile. Dumped. In the driveway.

Then, I had to stack the wood. Not that you cannot just leave it in a dumped pile, because actually, I could've done that. We do live in the country, and really, who cares? But no. That is not the way I was raised. Firewood must be stacked. Neatly. Little log soldiers all in a row. And it must be stacked so that it doesn't fall, or tip, or cast the occasional log off onto the driveway. My firewood is known as “mixed hardwoods”. The reason they call them hardwoods is because, well, I actually don't know that. But I call them hardwoods because they are hard to work with. And hard to burn. And hard to stack. And heavy as shit.

Then, I had to purchase a fire burning kit, otherwise known as “hearth tools”. A hearth is the stoney piece of stone in front of the actual part of the fireplace that contains the fire. Hearth's are there to keep your rug from catching on fire when the rambunctious coal or two pop and spit and throw embers out of the fire and onto your flooring choice.

So, fire gloves, bellows, poker, log picker upper, axe, hatchet and ball peen hammer, and broom and shovel later, I was ...ta da...equipped.

We don't get a newspaper out here in nowheresville.

That became a problem almost immediately. Right after I discovered that I didn't have newspapers, I also made the following discovery.

I did not have any kindling. A quick call to the firewood personage rectified that little situation, and two days later, he pulled into my driveway with his dump truck, and delivered a bundle...and I do mean a bundle...like 12 feet long.. by 6 feet wide and about 3 foot tall, of banded and assorted rejects from his lumber cutting side business. So now I have assorted almost board feet of lumber in my driveway instead of a pile of firewood.

My father in law has the chain saw. So for kindling, I have to take the extension cord, the reciprocal saw and a good sunny day and plug the extension cord into the master bathroom and close it in the laundry room door to the outside and sit on the steps to cut kindling. So be it.

I went to the Dollar Store, where they have a newspaper vending machine, put in my $.35 and reached into the bottom where they discard the left over newspapers and grabbed a handful.

Now I have firewood, newspaper, kindling, a fireplace and hearth tools. I am ready to make a fire.

And yes, I did remember to open the flue.

What I do NOT have yet, is the stump. You know, the stump in the yard where you chop the unwieldy logs into smaller, easier to handle logs.

My day now. Get up, get the kids off to school. Put on farmer boots, farmer coat, farmer snoopy hat with the farmer ears. Farmer gloves. Go out the farmer door to the farmer wood pile. Shut the laundry room inside door and the master bath inside door, which leaves the laundry room a closed space so to speak. Leave outside laundry room door unlatched, walk over to farmer wood pile. Pick up and carry 16 logs to the stairs. Put them inside the laundry room on the floor. Climb over them. Shut the door. Open the other two doors. Carry the wood into the living room. Logs by the front door on a piece of cardboard. Kindling and smaller pieces to the hearth.

Stir up the coals, see if there are still any hot ones from the previous night. If so, (and there usually are although I put the last log on at 8 pm), expose the coals and find two or three small skinny pieces of kindling. Get bellows out and blow. Fire starts. Burn kindling adding expeditiously as needed until coal bed is large enough to support wood.

Put first logs on. I usually try for softwood or smaller pieces. Build up to the bigger ones. About every hour I throw another log on the fire...(and yes, that song keeps going through my head day after day after day.....).

Repeat as needed.

I now have biceps. Whatever they are. DH told me so. I have discovered that the pounding on the hatchet with the ball peen hammer to make big logs smaller that I have been doing on the hearthstone is making my arthritis horrid in my hands.

However, I can keep the furnace off from 8 am to 8 pm. And, I now can build a mean fire

Which is a good thing because we dont have a TV in the living room and it gives us something to look at until the tax refund hits the bank and I can go to Wally World and buy a flat panel tv to hang on the wall because we don't have anywhere to PUT a tv in the living room except on the wall.