Fire No. 100: Inaugural Fire of the Fall Season

The kitchen addition to the Roediger House was completed in 2009, and upon the masons' recommendation we let the fireplace and chimney cure for almost a year before putting it to first use. More recently, under a frost advisory and awakening to temps just above 40°F on the final Saturday of October, I was pretty certain that a roaring morning fire was called for.

The logs and lighter wood were all laid, in waiting, when I cleaned the fireplace up last Spring, so all it took was a match and an open flue to get that blazer going. This was the 100th fire in the fireplace over these last 15 years.

It was also Homecoming Weekend for Wake Forest University, where I was once on faculty, and that brought former grad student Karen here to make one of the upstairs guest rooms her crash pad when she got to town. We stayed up way too late talking when she arrived Friday night but it was, as always, an awesome visit. We got to have coffee together by the fire on Saturday morning, after Sumner finally relinquished his cozy spot to her.

Then she scurried away to join her family and sorority sisters and WFU classmates for the football game and other festivities. But doggone it: we forgot to get a picture together! So I'm posting a shot of that Class of 2006 masters cohort in secondary social studies instead.