I was sitting at the wood stove the other day and contemplating starting a fire… my husband usually takes care of that, but he was out for a bit. I opened the door and noticed that there seemed to be a few lit embers left over from the night before, they grew brighter as the oxygen reached them. So, I added a few small pieces of tinder, and the flames caught within seconds.

After a few minutes, letting the flames warm the chimney above, I added a few small logs. It wasn’t long before I had a s...