Winter in Patagonia: Bringin' the Heat

I’m spending the winter house-sitting outside of El Bolson.  The house is near to the farm I lived at all summer and shares the stunning landscape of the valley of the Rio Azul.  While life in the country is tranquil and beautiful, it is also a fair bit of work.

The biggest issue is heating.  Temperatures are regularly well below freezing and my house is not well-insulated, which means I have to blast one or more of the three wood stoves (one is a “Russian” masonry heater, one is a wood-fired cooking stove, and one a water-heating tank) to provide comfort.  Keeping these fires going requires lots of wood.  In April, we worked on cutting and piling a stock of firewood in the forest behind the house, but retrieving it requires a trip up a considerable incline with a wheelbarrow.  It takes less than five minutes to get up, but it’s a huffing five minutes of muddy or icy path, depending on the time of day.  I have a frustrating propensity to try and pile as much as possible into the wheelbarrow.  I then spend the downward trip stopping every few steps to pick up and repack what falls out.  I am starting to learn to moderate my cargo, but the gamble is tempting. 

I get the wood down and then I have to split it with the ax.  Usually pretty easy and a welcome meditation, but once every batch I bury the ax head in a knot and have to either break my back to bust it out by brute force or surgically open it up with a chisel and hammer.  I need to get this wood into the house, so I make several trips in and out, amassing stockpiles by each stove that give me great comfort in the moment despite the fact that I know they will later submit with terrifying ease and velocity to the flames. 

I made a mess bringing that wood in, so I need to sweep up.  As I sweep wood chips and dust teleport themselves from the dust pan to the place I just swept.  I have learned to accept a measure of rustic mess, but, as it is not my house, I feel compelled to strive for cleanliness always.

Starting the fires is a whole ‘nother task.  A cold chimney, result of said below-freezing temperatures, does not, what we in the fire-world like to call, “pull,” and thus a fire is prone to die until its pathway out is heated up.  Add to cold chimneys humid wood and prospects are less than ideal.  I persist and succeed and I have tricks and techniques, but every now and then, despite best intentions and preparations, I encounter a smoky, resistant bastard like the one I encountered this morning.  I burned dozens of grade-school homework sheets and filled the house with toxic smoke before my teary, burning eyes saw sustained flamery. 

I start to read, write, enjoy my breakfast, but every time I settle into my chair I realize that if I forget to keep putting logs in, I will lose the fire and all my invested time and lung cells, so I return dutifully to the beast and feed it what it wants.  Now I feel guilty because I went to all this trouble and burned all this wood to make an apocalyptically hot fire, one I am really proud of.  I am obliged to make cookies, which means I need to stop typing and make dough.

I finished the dough and put it in the oven, but a wood-fired oven generally heats unevenly and requires constant vigilance.  During vigilance, I cleaned up the mess I made cooking and residual messes from isolated incidents occurring over the past 24 hours.   

The sun is low in the sky and patches of crisp white frost persist anywhere there is shade.  I’m wearing holey sweat pants and morning grog.  I guess you could say I finished breakfast, but it was really an undefined event marked by stolen sips of tea and munches of bread during maintenance of fires and food and order.  I’m listening to the Beatles.  It is now 12:45 in the afternoon.  The goat is slowly transforming herself from farm animal to house pet, sleeping outside the front door and following me to get firewood just like the dogs.  She expresses indignation, fear, loneliness, confusion, insecurity, and mockery all at once.

One batch of cookies came out and I’m distracted by worrying about the next.  I have just swept and passed a damp mop around the house.  It is a beautiful day so I really need to go up and get more firewood.

Here is the view from the front steps of the house...