The nip in the air was as sharp as the wind carrying it.

Rain was on the way, sensed nostrils lifted high to capture Mr. Wind’s whipping tail; it was filled with the telltale sweet heralding of a next-morning storm.

One tug at the corner of the plastic tarp atop one of six wood stacks made it easy for the gathering gusts to billow it, remove it and neatly deposit it at one side. A cord of split cherry, aged two years, awaited. The fireplace’s first burn of the season was nigh.

A first burn never is a raucous affair. Rather it is a low, slow and evocative seduction of sight, sound and smell. A low flame licks at the corner of the wood, slowly rising in sound but stopping short of crackling, its musky smell evoking memories of a rural Ohio past.

And this fire would live up to that billing.

As the thermometer dipped to below 60, the cherry was stacked just so in the arched sandstone fireplace with its marble hearth — two pieces on the bottom, a firestarter in between, another piece straddling their edges on top. A flick of the lighter inaugurated burning season No. 78.

The first fire, augmented every several hours with another piece of cherry, burned most of last weekend. Its scent complemented an old house already filled with the smells of slow-roasting heaven in the oven. The aromas were accompanied by the sounds of the wind-whipped rains that came. And went. And whipped again.

And it all was as pretty as a picture.

— Colin McNickle

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