It's Wood-burning Time Again

It's actually not that cold (30s-40s), but it feels every bit of the 40 degrees colder than summer that it is. We have a lot of cotton wood to burn. The other options up here are spruce and birch, which are both much hotter and longer-burning Alaskan hardwoods. Cotton wood is a fast - growing, very moist (until dried) and not very dense tree. It produces a type of cotton seed that blows through the air that can be obnoxious, so most people regard it a weed, a very huge weed, and cut it down. We did just that when we bought the land. We didn't cut a single spruce (well 2 by accident) or birch when building the house or making the driveway, but we cut probably more than 50 cottonwood. Most are buried in our front yard and a lot were burned along with brush down by the river, but some ended up in our wood pile. Besides the vast amount of ash they produce when burned, they are a good fall and spring wood, because they don't burn as hot and therefore don't sweat you out of the house. It's been nice burning the cottonwood. The 4a.m. stokings have already begun. Last year it was because our son was breastfeeding, would wake me, and I would feel obligated to refill the stove before the coals died. But, now I'm just waking because I feel it getting colder or because I'm pregnant. I don't know why, but I'm wide awake. But, it's kind of relaxing to reload the wood stove and wait for it to get back up to temperature when everyone else is asleep.