When we bought our house here, before the first snowflake fell we installed a wood stove. Neither of us had ever lived in the northeast before, but we knew from our house hunting trips two very cold hard facts - one, that the power lines are unreliable., and two, that the snow dumps here on occasion and it gets COLD. With a wood stove, we feel safer and ready for just about anything.

Somewhere along the way we acquired a second stove, and after 12 winters I've lit the fool things a time or two. As an aside, my grandfather used to always say firewood heats you twice, once when you cut/split it, and once when you burn it. Well, packing wood up those back stairs to the second floor was not something he ever had to do or it would count three. But I digress.

The thing is, I've come to be an expert at wood stoves. I can tell when the wood is wet but will still burn dandy, when it is dry but is going to smolder (too much rot), when the stove is going to crank heat out enough to make Deniese open the windows, and when it's a pleasant, moderate burn that keeps things comfortable but not uncomfortable, if you know what I mean.

What I am saying is a fire can burn too hot. Oh you probably want that initial bump when you start things up, because the house is cold and you are anxious to get the heat out into every nook and cranny. However good that sounds on a cold frosty day, even if it is zero degrees outside 90 degrees in the house is not particularly your target temperature. It is hard to maintain that anyway. Watching the paint peel off the walls is no fun, and hearing the house snap and pop trying to handle the temperature differences between inside and out is a bit harrowing. Besides, you fly through the wood feeding and feeding that fire, and I am not fond of having to fetch more (second floor stairs, remember?) Never mind you are burning money - while it does grow on trees (yuk yuk) the stuff is not zero cost even if you burn your own. Gas for the chainsaw, maybe paying a couple goofballs to stack it, etc.

On the other hand, a really slow fire is useless. Sure, its good for burning wood but if heat is your desired outcome you can, indeed, burn a fire so slow the stove barely warms up. Boring. So obviously you usually want a fire that starts out hot, settles down to a steady blaze, but you don't mind if it flares up now and then for that occasional spike of heat.

Marriages can be like that. They start out like, well, a house on fire often times. Then after things settle down, they back off to a steady burn, with an occasional flare up, (hopefully of affection, not fighting!). If they stayed at the fever pitch they started at, sooner than later one or both are going to "burn out." Instead, a lasting reliable blaze is kindled. Still, you have to feed the fire or it is going to go out.

What made me think of fire in the first place was what happened this morning. I had one of those fires that was filling the stove with smoke, and there were plenty of hot angry coals, but no flame. Such a fire left unattended is on its way to dying out, but when I got a little air in there, and when I put a match to just the right spot, the whole thing cranked up like I had poured a couple gallons of gasoline in there with it (which I never, EVER do). It was as wild as if I had lit a fire up from scratch, with all that tinder going off. Almost exploded back to life. Ka-whoom! I love fires like that. Very exciting and out of the ordinary!

And yes, I have seen marriages where the couples were distant, but brought back closer together and the right "spark" added and they fell so hard in love you would have thought the first time they met they were just playing acting. Marriages can be saved! The home fires can be kept burning! And they must, because there are two things you can count on. One, when it comes to marriage, the power lines - our family, friends, jobs - are unreliable. And two, folks, cold days *are* coming. "Again, if two lie together, then they have heat; but how can one be warm alone?" Light things up! Make your marriage out of the ordinary!

Randy