Stove Problems

This is ridiculous, I've used wood stoves my entire adult life; the only difference is that with a wood cookstove there are places you can't actually see. There could be a mechanical failure and I'd miss it. There is no repairman, I have to figure this out. Installed a new inside single-wall stovepipe, cleaned the triple-wall through the ceiling and out the outside, knocked creosote from the spark-arrestor cap, cleaned the smoke-chase which heats the oven. It might be the wood, the Wrack Show just might not want to burn, it is mostly poplar, old, light poplar, and it might not burn hot enough, at first, to establish a good draw. The problem is in the draw of smoke out the chimney. Following Sherlock's lead, eliminating possibilities, I'm down to the wood or a curse someone has put on me. I never burned a show before and maybe I should have considered the consequences of that. A young fire needs to be hot, to get the flue up to temperature. I'm leaning toward that being the problem, and I can test that solution tomorrow with some excellent oak starter sticks I just split out of some shelving that I replaced. There's an easy fix to this, I just haven't found it yet. Fucking smoke in the house, man, I feel like a dufus. Another possibility, I shudder to mention, is that the wood, floating in the Ohio, has picked up a lot of shit, oil and pcps and xyzs. I'm probably breathing air, right now, that is so contaminated, that if I didn't smoke, would probably kill me. I think I'm on to something here, because vented the house, opened all the doors and windows, then built a fire using a Danish Modern, ash, chair, I'd found in a dumpster, bone dry, but hard and solid. A perfect fire. I haven't lost my touch, the problem is flue temperature, I can deal with that. The poplar is bone-dry, but punky, and doesn't generate the BTU's. I hadn't realized there could be fires that weren't hot enough. I should have known that. And the solution is at hand, because last year, at the bone yard, I found a beautiful pine pre-cut, and brought a couple of rounds home, to dry for a year, resinous, fat, as we say in the south, you could start a fire in a rainstorm. Guy Birchard has some great poems in a recent publication from Long House, you should buy one of these, or two, so you can send one to someone else. Wonderful poems, the Canadian Basho, poems like Bly might have written, if he'd lived there. Poetry is such a touch, I went to the longer line, prose, because it was easier; if I give you more words, I'm more transparent. I think of myself as more transparent. It's just not hot enough, which I certainly am not, to strike a lasting fire. We evolve in a world that is evolving. The Polar Bears are gone, except for the few we hold in captivity, god bless us we should be granted such grace. To decide. I'm looking at very small worms, inside oak galls, right now, and they're trapped, they convert starch to sugar, but there is no way out. Phone out again. Short day at the museum, in order to get home and cut something other than wrack. Park at the bottom of the hill and hike up with extra booze and tobacco in case the snow is more than expected, also some hot Italian sausages, an orange and a red bell pepper, because I have an idea for a meal. A lot of the Sycamore, much Oak, and some Osage Orange is quite dry. I cut a few sticks by hand, by way of experiment. I traditionally cut firewood all day Thanksgiving. Need to work in the woodshed, arranging piles, so I can get dry wood under a roof. I dry it through the summer in ricks stacked in the open. The Osage Orange is so heavy, like Live Oak, 59 lbs a cubic foot. An interesting number to keep track of, one winter not this one, though I might crunch some preliminary numbers, is the conversion of pounds of particular woods into BTU's. Since my life depends on it, some information would be handy. I know this information is out there, I might get Carma to find it for me, but will get a scale and weigh a few things myself. I'm an empirical guy, and I've certainly come across a lot of bad information. This whole acorn thing. Don't any archaeology people cook? You always add spices and herbs, they couldn't possibly think those not-so-simple Indians ate such an insipid gruel? I tend to trust the cooks, but I'm Southern, and maybe it's a regional thing. When I came back from lunch, there were a bunch of the Circus girls buzzing about. Working on their winter programs. Dancers, whatever their age, in rehearsal togs, are a fucking hoot. It can be really sexy and it can be really funny; they worry over their bodies, the various parts, address them with various leggings and ACE bandages. I like the way they look, like an army of dancers coming back from the front. I love that image. Both of my wives were dancers, mostly I ever dated dancers, for a while I thought I might end up doing technical work in Dance, because I could, and it was there; but I couldn't be around that all the time, not the great bodies and incredible hang-time, but the fact that everybody bickered all the time, who had what office, what were the views, what filters were you going to use on the lights. Here's a great quote, Milan Kundera: "Chance, and chance alone has a message for us. Everything that occurs out of necessity, everything expected, repeated day in and day out, is mute. Only chance can speak to us. We read its messages, much as gypsies read the images made by coffee grounds at the bottom of a cup."