What a miracle fire is. I know there is a scientific explanation for the how and why of fire, but my mind can’t see it as anything other than a miracle brought about by the mind and will of a creative God. This miracle, which is intangible and without substance yet injures terribly if touched, provides so many of our most basic needs. This deadly, destructive miracle of energy is necessary to our survival. We’ve figured out other ways to harness heat, but fire is still the most basic form, and not too long ago was alone what provided light and warmth, a way to cook food, a way to power trains and to test the air deep in mine shafts. Imagine a life without it and what it provides.
And how beautiful it is. The dance of fire, the glow, the heat – they’re spell-binding. The tiniest flame of a candle, or a crackling fire in a wood stove – what beauty. The tinselly rustle as a log slides into the embers, the golden lights dancing on the ragged edges of the bark, the deep, mesmerizing glow in the hot spot beneath the logs…I could watch the flames for hours.
With the cold weather we’ve had lately, our cove heating has really been struggling. When daytime temperatures are around 25 degrees, the cove heating does fine, but when we’ve got temps of zero and below, that’s another story. Even with the temp set at 70 degrees during the day, it hardly would get above 62 degrees inside. But with Dad’s help we checked the stove for safety issues (since it hasn’t been used in probably a decade), got a load of firewood and pine cones brought down, and as I type I’m feeling the delightful warmth radiate from the stove. For the first time in awhile, it is actually too warm in the cabin, and I’m comfortable without layers and layers of clothing and blankets! 
How wonderful to be warm indoors with winter running wild just beyond the walls.
We had Luna for 2 years, and his personality has always amused and delighted and befuddled us. His looks were like a scientific illustration of a cat – he was perfect, with a long, thick tail, a perfectly proportioned body, and beautiful pale eyes. But aside from his looks, nothing else was dignified about him. He’s the cat who, even when quite full-grown, would curl himself up ridiculously to “nurse” on his own belly fur, a habit that he caught on to doing when his sister, Koshka, apparently missing their mother, started sucking on his belly when they were just 2-month-old kittens. Koshka eventually grew out of the habit, but not Luna. He’s the one who fell in love with Jess’s dog who was here for the first 9 months that we lived in the Hills. The two of them would love on each other, with Luna allowing Baby to groom him from head to tail. He’s the one we babied when he managed to get part of his tail degloved this winter when he got his tail closed in the front door, and he put up with our clumsy doctoring and his poor cone very patiently and sweetly. He was a forgiving cat. He’s the one who would taunt the dogs, then turn on them, claws unsheathed, and send the dogs scattering hilariously. Luna always strutted around like he was some hotshot, and then would go do something stupid. It is kind of hard to believe that crazy, beautiful cat is gone.
Song Dog Journal 