January 2025 - 46

Flames for
the heart
Story by Tom Reed | Illustration by L. Eslick
B
efore the pine beetle epidemic turned the Rockies orange in
the early 2000s and wiped out 125 million acres of green
timber from the crags of British Columbia to the canyons of
New Mexico, a person in search of a winter's supply of cordwood
had to do some hoarding.
In our mountain town backed against the
Winds, we kept our wood stashes as secret
as our blue grouse covers or our elk hunting
meadows. Perhaps more so because the
hunting spots required muscle, stamina and
determination while the dead timber was by
necessity close to a good road and anybody
with a pickup truck could get there. There
was nothing as humbling as arriving at your
wood-cutting spot only to find it had been
cleaned out.
We measured the weight of our winter in
gasoline for the pickup on multiple trips to the
mountains and cords of wood for the stove.
There were others like us and the blue of winter
woodsmoke lay like low stratocumulus over
the valley - fragrant and somehow as comforting
as the heat of the fire itself. January
woodsmoke bespoke July labor as much as hay
thrown to winter-coated cattle on a snowy day
told tales of irrigation set and swather slice.
Then came the beetle kill days - a periodic
wipe-out I first experienced as a teen in the
mid-1970s. Then, as in the 2000s, pines died
by the thousands. The chainsaws fired up in
response and woodcutting was easy if one can
define such not by sweat equity and strained
muscle, but by backing a pickup to a pile of
wood and commencing to cut. Cutting spots
were even shared among friends for the first
time in decades.
46 | January 2025
Today, while there's still some accessible
firewood in the hills, we get our winter's supply
delivered by semi-load to the east pasture
and spend the rest of the year blocking it up
and hauling it to the woodshed. This new
way of going is a sad necessity spawned by
a self-inflicted busy life, but one still feels a
bit independent putting by a winter's cordwood.
Just as one feels pretty darned good
canning last summer's tomatoes and green
beans, butchering last October's elk and having
a barn full of good hay. Winter can do its thing
and in this, the heart of it, it is time to take
comfort in the warmth of the fire, the taste
of last summer's efforts, the serenity of work
long done and gone.
There is a solace in the gathering, but it
deepens now as January lashes against the windowpane.
The fire pops and cracks and its
radiant warmth necessitates a turning, much
as one might turn a meat spit - backside,
frontside, side-side.
I have a feeling those who heat their winter
homes almost exclusively by wood are a
dying breed, but we are fortunate enough to
live in a rural landscape with others of our
ilk. Woodsmoke from the neighbor's place
upstream drifts fragrantly our way and our
own smoke - we hope - brings a similar
reaction of pleasantness to our downwind
neighbors. The scent of woodsmoke on a
clear, Western morning brings a feeling of
peace to the core as much as the warmth of
the stove itself. Travel someday to the Southwest
in the middle of winter and smell the
scent of juniper woodsmoke among the adobe
and you will understand what I mean. The
burning of Douglas fir in our country has its
own flavor and I suspect the great hardwoods
of the East, of which I envy, provide similar
olfactory pleasures. Woodsmoke is perfume for
the great outdoors, a campfire cologne. Mine
is a refined nose that can discern the smoke
January 2025

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