The flames of love...

We have lived in this house for a year and three months and had not yet used the fireplace. Having been given instructions by a home inspector on fire burning in a pre-fab wood fireplace and finding a large box of starter logs and two long-burning fireplace logs, we finally did the deed!

Our first fire!


Lanse gets it started and then basks in the glow.

The starter brick went pretty quickly-ish, but the fireplace log burned for two and a half hours. It really didn't drop any ashes until Lanse came to shuffle it around as it was dying out and it collapsed. The flames were really neat, so I had some camera fun. It's a fire Rorschach test! I labeled with mine (and, in one place, Lanse's, I'm sure you'll never guess which one); feel free to leave a comment on what you see. (I hope it's large enough to read... click to get more details)

After lots of snuggling and some hot cooca, the fire started dying out and we had some fun with embers:

After a severely depressing late afternoon, this was simply the best ending to any day I've had for a while. Thanks, Love, for catering to my fire whims.