Happiness Is a Warm Log

The places you live end up changing you. There was a time when my day was defined by navigating city traffic, either on my bike or via the myriad metro rails of our nation's capitol. I frequented dive bars and coffee shops and had the "Washington Post" delivered. I visited art galleries and museums with a fair degree of regularity. I had a French lesson every Tuesday night with a friend from Ivory Coast at a hipster bar. I wore lots of jersey knit fabrics. I worked at Urban Outfitters, Whole Foods, and several Mom & Pop natural food stores. In short, I was a city slicker, an urban maven, a metro minx.

While I'm only 20 minutes from downtown Asheville, my time is now largely spent writing on my laptop, tossing scratch to my chickens, making my own butter, and stoking my wood stove. Finding myself at home for 4-5 days at a stretch without leaving the property is a common thing. Sure, I still meet up with friends for cocktails, attend experimental music performances, and grab a cappuccino at one of Asheville's many fine coffee shops, but I'm much more likely to be found reading a homesteading book, starting seeds for my spring garden, baking a batch of poundcake cupcakes with brown butter frosting (make. them. now.), or having a beer surrounded by one husband, two dogs, and five cats.

I'm also much more likely to get excited by things like well-seasoned, properly split firewood, cut to the right length and delivered in measurements reflecting an actual full cord. We've been plagued by bad firewood deliveries, for years. I'm not prone to hyperbole; that's an absolute fact. The firewood we've had brought to us has been poorly cut, overly moist, terribly long, and woefully short of its advertised measurements. Until now. A well-written ad on Craigslist had me at "True Stacked Cords-128 cubic feet-delivered in a trailer."

Words like that call to me like a lighthouse in the fog. In my previous life, it might have been a cute pair of strappy shoes, or a fashionable handbag. Now, it's firewood. Firewood so well cured that it ignites as soon as I set it on top of coals. Firewood that burns steadily, furiously, all night long. Firewood that I'm happy to schlep, haul, stack, or otherwise toil over.

Like I said, the places you live end up changing you. I've been converted by firewood. Happiness, to me, is a warm log.

*Asheville/WNC folks: If you'd like to revel in firewood awesomeness too, hit up Dustin Ford. His business is "Woodstock Firewood" and he can be reached at 828/400-8684. His mom, Sandy, takes the calls. Just tell 'em I sent you.