The days are short and temperatures have dropped. It almost freezes at night now. I know that's not very impressive for those in colder climes, but it makes life harder.

I'm not a big weather wimp, but it finally broke me down. I lit a fire in the wood stove this morning, the only source of heat. It was a revelation. I had forgotten the simple pleasure of radiant heat, the contrast of facing a heat source, being warm on the front and cold on the back, making the heat all the more precious for its obvious scarcity.

It gave me an unexpected and arguably unjustifiable sense of well being. Even the smell of dust burning off the stove as the iron heated up seemed comforting. It isn't that it is a good smell, it's that it's friendly.

I know that by spring I will be far more than tired of it, and that there will be exasperating times such as when I burn my hands or arms on hot iron - hey, cool scar, ritual mutilation? no, wood stove. But today it's a pure pleasure.