a fire in the fireplace! & BIG marshmallows!
a trio of burned sugar
i love building fires. i think it might be genetic. i enjoy the construction of them, but the maintenance of them is what i relish. i especially like turning an ember-encrusted log that might appear to be burning out (to a less experienced fire-maker) just so & see it flare up, again, in a second (or third or fourth...not to brag) life. growing up in a house built in the early 1900's, we had teeny-tiny coal fireplaces. when we first moved into the house (which, i should clarify, was not in the early 1900's....i would be astonishingly old if that were the case), we had actual coal delivered by a coal truck, scuttled directly via a coal chute into our basement! amazing and so not environmentally friendly (i am that old, it seems). so, there was a very specific way my father instructed me in building a fire in our house. a jigsaw puzzle of tightly-balled newspaper, pieces of coal, kindling of just the right size and composition, and - finally - split logs. the goal was a criss-cross of wood on top of the bed of newspaper and coal that allowed just the right airflow to burn the logs brightest & longest. (we also camped a lot when i was growing up, and those fires were fun to build, too.)
i didn't build the fire we had tonight - we all four like building them, so i don't always get a turn :) this photo i took reminded me how mesmerizing it is to stare into a fire. as a girl, i used to stare at these little fire caves and imagine an entire fairy world inside (quick google search yields fire fairy details). until my face got too hot and i had to look away, breaking the spell.
