This morning I did something that made me happy all day:

This morning I did something that made me happy all day:

I cooked my breakfast on the top of the wood burning stove in my living room. My breakfast was of course from our chicken's eggs. The wood from the stove came from a tree I cut down 2 summers ago.

Last winter I tried to figure out my stove, but after getting a bunch of smoke in the house Kaiwen reasonably yelled at me. So I gave up last season.

But last night with the temperatures at 26 or so, I had more motivation to figure out the stove. With the miracles of the internet I located the 40-page manual for my stove in a minute. Reading the instructions carefully, the fire-starting sequence is simple, but specific in its order. So, after Reading The Fine Manual it roared to life and nicely kept the upper two floors warm all day.

By morning the fire was down to nice, calm embers, but soon enough roared back to life with some added fuel. After I left for work Kaiwen told me that her mom, Sue has been happily cooking stuff all day on the stove.

It is incredibly satisfying to me to learn all of these basic skills. I know it sounds ridiculous or silly, but it is deeply fun to learn. It feels great to connect the house, the land, the sky, the rain and see how much we can make ourselves.

Kaiwen has been pursuing cooking, baking and knitting. Nearly every restaurant meal I have now is a disappointment - any random meal at home is likely to be better. Baking - incredible - she can make breads, cakes, cupcakes, cookies, pies, croissants, - anything we can think of.

This year I would like to take advantage of the incredibly strong incentives from Austin Energy for Solar and Rain harvesting.

And of course I am curious how many of my meals I could create from our land.

Originally posted on Facebook on January 07, 2014.