Suzy, Pioneer Homemaker

Today it poured rain here and the temperatures dropped some and so the house was chilly. I decided to light the wood stove. Yeah, right, that was easy for me. I shredded paper, I used a lighter, I burned more paper and then more paper. Did it light? Well let’s just say there was a lot of smoke and no fire. As you can see, it did get lit, but no thanks to my efforts, unless you count the fact that I put the wood in and the smoke drove my husband to help me. He got it going in no time and soon things were quite hot around here. I put on the soup to cook and in no time at all it was done. I had to finish it over on the barbecue because I was afraid it would burn. I heated up some of the wonderful provolone cheese bread in the oven and it was all crusty and hot to go with the soup. What a fun way to cook … well fun after the smoke got cleared out of the room and the stove heated up. I am currently boiling water that we will cool and can use to drink tomorrow. I NEVER imagined that I would use a wood cook stove. It’s actually just a novelty, for it’s a lot of work and not very practical, but I suppose I would eventually get the hang of it.

Today I worked on painting and was very pleased with the tulip I produced, albeit copied from one of my art books. I did it in red rather than the original purple, because I just like red better!  I am currently working on a still life with bottles. The owners of the house must have been heavy drinkers as there are lots of interesting wine and liquor bottles all around the house.

Just so you can get the idea that it’s not all work on and no play, you can see the hammock we both use to do our reading.  I guess you have figured out that although one week of our vacation has already been spent, we are not anywhere near finished having fun.