Wood Stove

And now for our Magnum Opus:

We put in a wood stove, and rocked up the wall behind it.

This took considerable time and effort, but the results were well worth it.

It was a family endeavor from Paca, PacaMa and Kin helping our family go out and gather the rock.  Then it needed to be split, washed, and lined up inside.  

Colt was the master craftsman to put it all together.  

Silver washing off the rock, and then loading them in the wheelbarrow.

River splitting the stone that Daddy started with the saw.

Colt and I had different visions for the rock work.  I thought we were laying the stone flat against the wall, while Colt was envisioning stacking the rock on top of each other.  I told him if I would have known that I would have gathered different rocks!

Video:  River and Silver bringing the rock in and laying it out so Daddy could see all the pieces he had to work with.

Video:  Steps for bringing in the rock:  Wipe your feet, dry your feet, march in, hand over heart, bow to the King, and kick your bum on the way out :)

River and Daddy just starting to lay rock - put down mud and stack it up!

We really like the finished product!

Colt made a stand - handy to raise it up off the floor, have a place to sit and then kids aren't running into it.  

Very very very nice work Colt!

He also made the arch in back of the stove pipe to allow more heat flow to go to the other side of the house. Pretty little feature. 

The girls have said that the stove fits in well with our family:  All of their names end in -er.  River, Silver and Summer.  They said that Fisher is a good name for the stove :)  They have declared that our baby needs to have an -er name to keep up with the trend.  We didn't intentionally name them all with -er. it just kind of happened.  When I had Silver the nurses asked me if I was going to name her Brooke or Stream.....uhhhh, no.  Why is that?  Because, they answered you have a streak with running water.  Oh!  I didn't know one kid was a streak....that is more like a smudge :)

Silver is a very observant person and very helpful when she sees a need.  She keeps us well-stocked with wood for the stove.  Most of the time without being asked, but always is willing to run to the laundry room for more wood!!  Such a great helper.

Silver also is a big helper to get the wood from the pile out back up onto the porch, and then we move it to our stack inside.  I have really enjoyed having this work for our girls to do.  We go out while Daddy chops the wood and we stack it in a big pile.  We also have a box for Summer to gather up the little kindling.  She puts a couple in the box but mostly runs around with Silver while River and Mommy gather the bigger pieces to stack.  

River was really sweet - I mentioned that this would be a paying job.  She could keep track of how many she stacks and get paid at the end for it.  In the end I asked her how many she stacked to pay her and she replied that Mommy and Daddy do a lot for their family without any pay.  She would like to help without any pay too - because it was a family project.  She has done that multiple times - when I go to pay her reply is "you don't need to pay me - I just did it to help the family."  She is so mature for her age!

Silver is not bashful about hauling the biggest pieces that she can carry!

Mommy's back was really hurting one day - I fell off a stool backwards (talking on the phone while carrying frosting for Silver's birthday cake, sat down on the back edge of the stool and fell flat on my back.  This was about 2 months ago and Really hurt my back!  I've seen the chiropractor a couple of times - who happens to be Colt's cousin so we get the family rate :)   Anyway, it is really hard for me to not be able to do projects I think I should be able to do, but until this heals up I can't do these things or it will cause me incredible pain to sit and walk.  

So one day when my back was hurting, I pulled the wood off of the pile and Silver and River got it all on the porch and then all inside.  They were troopers to get the job done.

One of our family mottos:  We finish what we start!

They did a great job!

Silver with her cheetah pants!  She loves cheetahs!

It has been good to work together to heat our home instead of just plugging the heater in.  

The wood warms you when you chop it, stack it, haul it, burn it...and from all the great memories :)