The joys of wood fires

2nd February 2007

posted in random |

It’s COLD in central Oklahoma tonight! One of the things I have enjoyed the most since moving to Oklahoma has been wood fires in the evenings. This is a picture of the fire I lit tonight and posted to Flickr:

We’ve actually had SEVEN snow days so far this year (and many school districts in eastern Oklahoma have had even more) and enjoyed much colder weather than we were used to living in Lubbock, Texas. We did have a fireplace in Lubbock, but it was a gas fireplace. I could never really feel good about having a fire in a gas fireplace, because the experience is not the same as a wood fire (I’m a purist when it comes to these sorts of things) and the entire experience was too close to just watching money burn up. Certainly wood here in Edmond costs money, but I suspect it is FAR less expensive to have a wood fire here than gas ones. Especially BLAZING fires like the one we’re having tonight!

Interestingly, when we ordered our first load of wood here in Oklahoma, I was thrown a bit by the measurements. I was used to ordering a cord of wood, but here they use ricks. It seems to me the “rick” is an undefined measurement that permits the wood seller to basically give you however much or little he wants to. From our purchases to date (2 ricks burned, and we’re on our 3rd for the winter) it seems like 2 ricks are about equal to a cord. I really am not sure, however.

Some of the teachers I worked with this past week for our Oklahoma Digital Centennial project facilitator training were shocked to hear how much wood costs here in Edmond. The first time we purchased two ricks, we paid $110. This last time (my wife paid and didn’t negotiate) we paid $70 for rick. That does seem pretty expensive to me. In eastern Oklahoma, the teachers said they never paid much for wood. It is very plentiful, and very inexpensive to pay a teenager to collect and deliver it or just cut it yourself.

I LOVE wood fires, however, so I am not complaining. Especially because a big, hot fire feels great when it feels like 10 degrees outside with windchill! (I know, these are balmy conditions compared to what folks in Canada are experiencing now. It feels quite COLD for us transplant-Texans, however!)

On this day..

This entry was posted on Friday, February 2nd, 2007 at 9:45 pm and is filed under random. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

1 On February 3rd, 2007, Miss Profe said:

I, too, enjoy wood fires. The most vivid memory I have of one of my college visits as a then-prospective students was the roaring fire in the fireplace of the Admissions Building Waiting Room. And, although my parents have a fireplace, it has never been lit in the almost 26 years that they have resided there: Mom doesn’t want the fireplace to get dirty! Oh, well.:)

2 On February 3rd, 2007, JenniferW said:

Grins — Can’t decide what I am enjoying more —

the family photo or the crackling fireplace………………

either way — that is a picture that will warm our hearts for a long time.

Thanks for sharing.
Jennifer