First Fire of the Year

Now that autumn is among us, the air is getting cooler everyday.  New Zealand does not have central heating like back in Canada, and we have to depend on a wood burner in the family room to heat the house up. New Zealand houses do not have the same insulation as Canadian houses, on top of that our house had only single pane windows.  So needless to say the cool air from outside is making its way into our home very easily. 

So today I started our first fire in our wood burning oven. I was pretty nervous about getting it going, because I don't have much experience lighting fires. With a good amount of wood kindling, paper and cardboard I made a tipi in the middle of the oven. Of the few things I know about building fires, I do know that starting it well is VERY important in making sure it stays alive. With only ONE try, I had the fire going and blazing hot!!!  I did use a lot of paper and cardboard, I am sure more than was necessary, to get it going.  If anyone has fire making (and staying alive) tips, I would love to hear them!  
The only I had left to figure out is which side the air intake handle had to be on in order for the vent to be open.  With a lot of fiddling about, I finally got that too; but it think is was much harder than it had to be because the chimney has not been cleaned out for a few years, and the oxygen source is probably not the best that it could be.  Our landlord it supposed to be getting it cleaned out very soon, FYI.

Not too much going on over here, many couchsurfers coming and going, making our home full of friends all of the time:-)