As we speak, my wife putters around her kitchen
with the grace of a ballerina.
She moves with plates and pots, stepping over
lazy dogs, dodging the crap I left out and haven’t put away.
She has about seven different things cooking and the house smells
wonderful.
I wish we had a wood stove,
and the time to use it properly...
I really enjoyed that, until the end... Made me miss a happy home...
ReplyDeleteYou are a rich man, GF. A rich man...
I am indeed, STxAR - and sometimes need to be reminded of it.
DeleteThat is how a family should live, slow, peaceful and happy.
ReplyDeleteBrought back strong memories of when I was 9 years old, we emigrated from England and went to what was then Nyasaland (now Malawi) in the early 1950's. We had a wood-fired range like the one shown, we had charcoal-fired irons to iron clothing and we had to go out into the 'bush' to gather firewood. I was aged 9 and with an African servant I would go out to gather fallen boughs, usually ones ripped down by elephants. It was the African man who taught me that it was acacia heartwood we were after. It was black and didn't burn with a flame, it simply glowed red-hot. My Mother cooked everything on that stove, including Christmas dinner.
Hot water came from dual Rhodesian boilers; two 44-gallon drums mounted horizontally over a fire-pit. We never ran out of hot water! Any garden waste which would burn went into the fires, the ashes were scattered on the vegetable garden.
It's all gone now. The elephants have been shot out, poached for ivory; the forests have all gone, cut-down by charcoal burners and the very efficient controls imposed by the-then Colonial Government have disappeared to be replaced by some of the most corrupt regimes ever. The principal sufferers are the very Africans who were told that Independence was good for them.
That is how a family should live, slow, peaceful and happy.
ReplyDeleteBrought back strong memories of when I was 9 years old, we emigrated from England and went to what was then Nyasaland (now Malawi) in the early 1950's. We had a wood-fired range like the one shown, we had charcoal-fired irons to iron clothing and we had to go out into the 'bush' to gather firewood. I was aged 9 and with an African servant I would go out to gather fallen boughs, usually ones ripped down by elephants. It was the African man who taught me that it was acacia heartwood we were after. It was black and didn't burn with a flame, it simply glowed red-hot. My Mother cooked everything on that stove, including Christmas dinner.
Hot water came from dual Rhodesian boilers; two 44-gallon drums mounted horizontally over a fire-pit. We never ran out of hot water! Any garden waste which would burn went into the fires, the ashes were scattered on the vegetable garden.
It's all gone now. The elephants have been shot out, poached for ivory; the forests have all gone, cut-down by charcoal burners and the very efficient controls imposed by the-then Colonial Government have disappeared to be replaced by some of the most corrupt regimes ever. The principal sufferers are the very Africans who were told that Independence was good for them.