Meet My Fireplace

Picturesque, its native stone dominating the living room, I've never shown you my fireplace because it doesn't cross my mind. Last lighted in 1991 as testified by the tenants before me, it blasted hot soot throughout the cabin,

requiring an actual disaster team for clean-up, and the charring underneath the mantel from that hot mess is still visible today.

Estimate for re-lining and repair: $8000, and the landlord wouldn't pay, or for the cost of running and installing a new propane pipe for a gas fire. Because critters came down the chimney and died behind the glassed-in hearth--here covered by a blue wintertime sheet of custom-cut insulation--I had the chimney sealed. The huge crack up the front was there when I moved in, and I shuddered in its draft for 13 winters, until this very day when I caulked it with caulk that's white when first applied but turns transparent. I also filled holes in the native rock, unworried about resale value. This cabin was not built for year-round occupancy and some say the chimney was faulty from the first.

Fireplaces are wonderful, so romantic--and they suck the heat out of the room, require careful maintenance and tending and the bringing in of wood, and I wish mine were the fireplace it aspired to be, but it isn't.

The Nest

I fitted out one room to live in and keep warm in while propane prices do whatever they want; just leave me out of it. I will NOT pay a petroleum dealer $1200 for 200 gallons, which is less than half a tank, so I'm conserving. The cabin's thermostat is in this room; it's set at 55. One of my electric space heaters keeps the room at 60 degrees, while the rest of the house is 40-some degrees and due to get colder as tonight's temperatures shrink to 0. Since I turned the thermostat down 48 hours ago the furnace hasn't kicked on even once. I sit on the futon propped up by multiple pillows and work, or watch The Weather Channel, and at night sleep in my wonderfully roomy new brown sleeping bag. Note the Weather Channel's map of how propane prices in the Midwest have risen in one week. Is that a stone fireplace you see in the room, to the left? Yes. Beautiful and nonfunctional. More about the fireplace soon. I'm lucky to be able to make a comfortable nest. There are people with families, seniors, and houses much draftier than mine, or no houses at all, or whose tanks are at 0 and don't have a choice.

The Propane Man

That's my check for $880 he's holding, so the least he could do, I said, was pose for a picture. Love these trucks, always kept clean and bright. You remember last year I let the propane run out to nothing and sat for three days (long weekend) in a 49-degree house. Not this year, uh uh! No dumb bunny! Plus I turned up the heat by four degrees cuz no matter what you do to a log cabin it's still going to be chilly in here-the logs themselves are solid through with cold. The floor radiates cold. So this man, a very friendly propane man, is one of my truest friends. Will work for $880. (I don't want to divide that by the number of gallons and see the price per gallon, because I'll get mad.)

The Flying Propane Tank

The Divine cabin failed seven state and fed'ral requirements for propane safety. The #1 change ordered by the inspector is that the 200-gallon tank, looks like a baby elephant, has to be moved to the other side of the house. They'll use a crane. I'll stay home that day to ask real nice if I can ride on it while they move it.

Tanksful of LP (liquid propane) have been delivered here for 50 years and in all that time if anyone saw violations in the tank and pipe setup they looked the other way and kept mum. Propane, that burns such a dreamy blue -- fairy-godmother blue -- inspires all sorts of magical, magic-carpet thinking. I pretended that the less I looked at the gauge, the less often I'd need to call for a refill.

The gas people will drain the tank before they move it, and probably won't credit me for that, so this March weekend I'm using LP promiscuously, baking pies and keeping the whole house cozy warm after bein' crazy frugal all winter. Lesson: Don't be frugal. Spend what you have.