Fire in the House
Heat is survival. Without it, a house is just walls against the cold. On this farm we learned that lesson in our first years here.
The first winter on this farm was spent in a camper. During that time we demolished the original house and began renovating the three-car garage that would become our home. We relied on a generator for power until we could reconnect the property to electric. By the second winter we had moved into the converted garage. It still ran on electric heat, and both winters carried the same risk. One storm, one downed line, and everything would go cold.
This winter we are taking the next step toward resilience. For our entire lives, heat belonged to systems outside our control. Gas lines, electric bills, outages that came without warning. Installing this stove broke that pattern. The two of us moved a 300-pound stove that weighed more than both of us combined. We inched it through the doorway, set it where it belonged, and made it part of this house. It was one of the hardest projects we have taken on here, and we did it without help. Now the fire we light inside it is ours, and no system can shut it off.
A wood stove is more than heat. It’s survival. One fire can warm the house, simmer beans with quail meat, keep a kettle ready for tea, and heat water for a bath when the pipes freeze. It turns a power outage from a crisis into an inconvenience.
The work of putting it in was heavy and exacting. Cut the hole, run the pipe, set the sections, and brace the chimney so it stands against the wind. Nothing about it is easy, but every step teaches you something. The first time smoke rose clean from the chimney instead of rolling back into the room, it was proof that the job was done right.
Most houses no longer have wood stoves because they demand attention. Someone has to split the wood, stack it, and feed the fire every day. Heat like this cannot be managed from a thermostat on a phone. It requires presence. The disappearance of the wood stove followed the disappearance of people staying home. We let convenience replace resilience. We accepted systems that made us weaker because they were easier.
The stove puts that control back in our hands. Every log cut and stacked is a measure of security. Every fire lit is proof that the grid is not in charge of whether this house stays warm.
This winter, when storms bring the lines down again, the lights may go dark but the stove will burn. That fire is the difference between being helpless and being free.
Each project like this builds more than resilience. It builds confidence. When you cut your own wood and light your own fire, you become harder to touch. Every step away from the grid makes you less dependent and more certain. This is what Exit Farming: Starving the Systems That Farm You is about. It’s about refusing weakness that is sold as comfort and taking back the strength that only comes from work done with your own hands.