Wednesday 10 December 2008

Wood burning stove.


Its rather cold here in Scotland at the moment. Most mornings I am travelling to work on icy roads with temperatures of -5c. Whether I'm working or fishing its always nice to come home to a warm house. The stove has been on constantly for about 3 months now, and we have used three layers of logs from the woodstore. The cottage has a central heating system which runs on kerosene, but it's very expensive to run, so for the most part we only use the boiler for hot water. First pic is of the stove with Salem, our cat close by. She thinks she's a ferral cat I'm sure because she never comes in the house during summer. Between you and me she's a fair weather ferral cat. Salem was 13 last month and still very fit and healthy. She's well capable of taking small rabbits and birds, I think that her diet consists of the food we put down to her, animals and birds she hunts, and more than likely another couple of families who thing Salem, Blackie, Tiddles is actually their cat.
Second pic as a basket of dried beech logs. Hardwoods such as ash and beech are best for a wood burning stove as they give out lots of heat, but still burn for much longer than soft wood.

6 comments:

Mungo said...

When we got our house, I was saddened to see that the chimney had been sealed off, and that there was not fireplace or wood stove. There's nothing like the sweet smell of woodsmoke when the snow is closing in.

Lucky you!

Cheers,

Mungo

His Girl Friday said...

Looks wonderful. I love ours, though we don't get near the cold weather as you do (and, therefore don't get to use it as often)

His Girl Friday said...

I spoke to soon, it's actually snowing today!

Gordon Mills said...

Hope you have a good store of dry wood. It's so cold here we have had ours on night and day since September. The ways things are going I'll have to get the chainsaw and axe out again.
Cant even get fishing as the lochs are mostly frozen.......never mind, Christmas just around the corner, and spring to follow.
By the way Mungo, I'm having a Canadian Canoe from Santa Claus;-)

His Girl Friday said...

Well, I have teenagers to bring the firewood up, and plan to convince hubby he needs to get the chainsaw out as well.

We're getting weather (rain or snow) for Christmas which will be nice for a change; strange, I know, but living in a desert doesn't allow much for the 4 seasons.
The rain and cold makes for nice 'baking' weather, though. :)

wishing you many happy hours with that new canoe... :)

His Girl Friday said...

Happy Christmas!!