The Stove Is Gone

Strange disappearance recently. I had gone to the other farm to check out the old homesteader cabin, found raccoons or something had pried a window open. While closing up the window and nailing it shut I glanced in through the window to see if all was well. It was getting a little dark in there but I could tell something was missing. I could not see the big old wood burning kitchen stove. Surely my eyes were not that bad! Then I started to question my memory. Had we moved the stove? Sold it to someone? Was it ever really there?
I even considered the possibility that someone had broken in and stolen it. As my eyes adjusted to the low light I realized there was a dark cavern in the middle of the kitchen floor where the stove used to be.
Yes, the joists under the floor had apparently rotted away over time and allowed the stove to collapse into the cellar.
It could be a difficult task hauling the stove up out of the cellar. Anybody looking for a cheap wood stove?

60 Years Ago

This picture from about 1950 shows my Dad beside a load of firewood destined to heat the house for the winter. Poplar logs, all cut by axe, loaded on the sleigh by hand, and unloaded the same way. The old saying was true, "wood warms you several times". Much handling involved from start to finish. Usually a group of neighbours would gather to help saw the poles into stove wood lengths.
On a cold quiet winter night it was nice to listen to the occasional snap of sparks from the stove and feel the heat radiating off the big old cast iron cook stove. Kind of made all the work worth while.