smoke as time

One thing I've noticed here on the other side of the creek is how activities, sights, sounds, and other phenomena can be central to life, peripheral to life, or seemingly a million miles away.
During much of the year, our wood stove is peripheral at best. During the winter months, staying warm looms large, and the stove becomes a central focus of our lives.
For hundreds of years, the length of a round of meditation has been measured by the time it takes for a stick of incense to burn away. Time is measured in smoke, and glowing embers. Our winter season is calculated in much the same way. Time and BTU's are very much the same thing. On the days when I'm home, I will put two or three logs on the fire at a time because that seems to be the most efficient use of the wood. I can get more warmth out of each log. When we leave for work, we need to fill up the stove, however, in order to keep the house warm for the duration of our absence. Long experience has informed me that we use about 15 pieces of wood a day, and that the length of the winter season equates to three cords of wood, more or less.