Like A Rock

Many posts ago, we featured the Grant Wood painting "Stone City, Iowa". The picture below was taken at the quarry depicted in that painting, which operates today as Weber Stone Company. This lovely slab of Stone City limestone is about to be lifted into the back of the truck, and transported to the Yum Yum Farm to be used as our hearth. This is a 3' by 4' smooth cut bedface slab, which will be placed on top of the finished floor on the east side of the living room. On it will sit our Lopi wood burning stove. Why wood, and not, say, corn, you ask? We made the determination that wood is a good option for us, due to the abundant supply of said fuel on our property. In fact, we spent a couple of days, chainsaw in hand, cleaning up a very small area of dead, damaged, and fallen trees along one of the creeks on the farm, and yielded the better part of a cord of wood. Unfortunately, this wood is now underneath a blanket of snow and ice, and it looks like it may be some time before this solid water liquifies. As it turns out, corn is not quite as economical as it was when corn stoves first gained popularity. Seems that corn not only fuels stoves these days, but it's also propelling cars in the form of ethanol. So this year's crop brought record prices. Corn also tends to suck a lot out of the ground in which it grows, and since wood is so available on our property, we figured this is the best option for us. More on the wood stove when it gets installed.