Chestnuts Roasting

We had our first fire last night and it was wonderful. We had a gas fireplace in our old house. It was convenient to be able to walk into the living room and have a fire with the turn of a key, but we didn't really use it much. Even though it had the fiberglass stuff at the bottom to mimic burning embers, it still had this tinny out-of-a-box fakeness to it. Now, I know what was missing. What was missing from our fake gas fire was the popping of wood as the water trapped in the fibres exploded, the smell of camping and out-of-doors that waft out of an open fireplace, and the crisp glow of orange that can only come from real carbon materials. It was wonderful and dreamy and perfect. We all spent the evening with no television watching the real embers and flames dance and jump behind the screen. Bliss.

Now, the saga of our fireplace began over two years ago. The massive fireplace in the family room commands attention and was one of the features that drew us to this house. It was beautiful, but it wasn't functional. The chimney cap was damaged and there nothing to arrest sparks, so if we had a fire, we could possible set the roof on fire. Little Clover suggested that we only have a fire when it was raining outside. He's a smart kid. In addition to the missing chimney covers, the dampner was broken as well. This winter, we finally decided to have the entire chimney serviced and fixed. All the work was completed last week, and we had temperatures in the high 60s and even hit 71 one day. We were resigned to waiting until the next winter to have a fire, but we lucked out with a fairly cold night and a lunar eclipse (one really doesn't have anything to do with the other, but they were both highlights [hee, hee] for us). I'll never go back to a gas fireplace again.