Sunday was cold and cloudy to start but the house was still warm. I worked on the transcript of Remedy and started makings for beef stew thawing. It was a leisurely day. I had laundry going all day. Late morning I started watching Gilmore Girls and eventually fell asleep.
I didn’t wake until 3:30, too late to start the stew. The house was growing colder as it had been cloudy all day. The forecast was for 50’s Sunday night and cloudy and 60’s for Monday. The house would not warm up. So I decided to light fires.
But when I opened the door to the wood stove, I remembered I’d had to put in new firebrick before I started burning. Some of the bricks were still good, but some had crumbled or broken apart or were worn on the bottom from the ash shovel.
Getting them out without breaking them was hard and there were 2 – 3 broken ones. They all had to come out because I had to redo the bottom and they all rested on it.
I managed to get them all out and asked my son for help. He brought up 15 new ones I had stored. He ended up putting them back in for me and I was able to reuse several, so I had 5 left. I’ll have to get more for next year. It took me a couple hours to get this done.
Lighting the stove for the first time is tricky, and I managed to smoke out the house a bit before it finally got going. I realized I’d not cleaned up the top about this time. I’ll have to do it once it cools down.
Using plenty of kindling, the masonry heater lit much more easily. In a couple hours the house was warmer and would be all night.
Upon checking my records, I realized I’d not had the chimney cleaner in during the spring as I intended. This late in the season, I don’t know if I will be able to find one.
On Monday I intend to do the bills and budget and the contractor will start about 3PM for a few hours.