I LIVE WITH A COOKSTOVE AND LOVE IT

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If a family didn't want to invest in a wood-burning range but found it necessary to buy a wood-burning heater for warmth, they could purchase one of these ducky little ovens and insert it in the stovepipe of their heater. They'd then be all set for cooking, heating and baking. The little ovens cost in the neighborhood of nine dollars. They are substantially built and, in my opinion, are well worth the price.

I wouldn't mind at all cooking on such an ensemble and I plan to buy one of these ovens and mount it on our heater's pipe. Then—if I should take the notion to bake a cake and the range isn't fired up—I can still bake. Sort of like killing two birds with one stove!

IN CONCLUSION

I can now look back two years and laugh at my anxieties about starting a fire in my wood-burning range. In fact, I find that—as I put more years behind me—I am able to laugh at most things I once thought were major catastrophies. And I did have my problems with that stove.

The first time I baked biscuits I burned them to ebony. Also the second and third time. But on the fourth try they came out golden brown. And I burned my hands and wrists every day until I finally got it through my blockhead that EVERYTHING on or near that stove was HOT! But surely—if somewhat slowly—I mastered the wood range.

There's one thing about my cookstoves—No, there are many things about them, but this one in particular—they simply won't be hurried. They take their own sweet time. No begging, wringing the hands or kicking their backsides will get them hot any faster. They force me to slow my quick-moving self to a snail's pace, which is good for me.

I am compelled to wait for the fire to get hot enough before I put the bacon in the skillet, or else it will just boil gently ( gag ). Then I'm compelled to wait for the fire to cool down enough to pop the biscuits into the rosey-red oven or I have burned-on-the-outside-and-gooey-on-the-inside (shudder) biscuits. I like to think of these "waits" as character-building.

I should explain here that, for me, there's a vast difference in doing a thing that can be aggravating at times, "by choice" rather than "by necessity". When I feel forced to accept a situation that irritates me, I can moan and complain louder than any soul for miles around. But when the thing or situation is my own choice, I feel pretty silly griping about it . . . in fact. I'd better not, if I know what's good for me.

To be even more honest, there are times when cooking on a wood-burning range can be pure hair shirt, UNLESS I channel my attitude into the right groove. Honestly though, these times are rare.

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