An Old Masonry Oven and its Firewood

Our First Year at Baggebo Homestead - Chapter 5, September 2023

An old masonry oven would be our only heat source in that very first winter at our Danish farmhouse. It was coupled up with the floor heating, and there would be no way of staying there for the winter if we could not get that system up and running.

Unfortunately, the masonry oven was 25 years old, its doors were rusty, and the chimney was full of running soot and soft grout. All in all, it wore strong signs that the house had been abandoned for many winters where it had been left cold and damp and alone.

To us, it was never a question, if we really should stay here for winter. I guess we never really imagined that we would not. But neighbors and other concerned family members would ask us: “What will you do in the winter? Surely you cannot stay there with no heating system.”

Since I have always been very motivated by people telling me what I could not do, it lit a fire in me to hear those exact words. “There is a heating system,” I would say firmly. “There is a masonry oven, and it will heat the whole ground floor.” People have made due with far less, so why would this not work? I thought. The farmhouse was our home now, and where else does one stay in winter, if not at home? I shrugged off their concerns easily.

The firewood that we would use for the upcoming season had been delivered in a big mountain earlier in August. The warm weather continued for two weeks into September, before there were warnings of rain. Herluf was supposed to start his studies back up, but he neglected it in order to secure the firewood, in time for the bad weather to come and ruin all the dry firewood.

The whole woodshed he filled with firewood with the help of a kind neighbor down the road, who had borrowed us a machine, Herluf could use. There was no time for shedding, cleaving or even stacking wood. With the weather warning us of cool days and rain, the firewood had to be ensured as fast as possible, so it was all done with a machine and in a hurry.

All the while, I was scrambling to find time to finish my thesis that I had to turn in in the middle of September. By then I would be able to finally say, that I had finished my studies and had obtained my master in Literature.

My desk set-up in our living room from where I wrote my thesis.

I wrote my thesis fast, scuffled, but in the end, I did complete it, and I was very proud of having done so whilst also taking care of my daughter from home.

At this point my parents-in-law had begun helping more and more with childcare, and two times a week my daughter would be picked up by them in the morning and they would go swimming or playing on the local playgrounds, and I would be free till midday when she would return for her midday nap.

When I finally turned in my thesis, I was left with two times a week where I was not needed by my child. Usually I would do some work around the house, but more and more I begun exploring the woods, by myself, and feeling a sense of freedom and self-ness I had not felt since becoming a mother over a year ago.

The forest that was right behind our plot was now filled with ferns and hazelnut. It seemed for every step I took, deer was jumping away from their hiding spots in the long grass under the birch trees. The forest was calm and yet so lively with crawlies in the underground, orange beech leaves against the deep blue September sky.

On these walks I would contemplate what I should do with my newly accuired master degree. The jobs in Northern Denmark for art students is even less than they would have been in the big city from where we came. But still, I felt I had given up a part of myself, in becoming a full-time stay-at-home-mother.

There was no proudness, not in the eyes of many, of “simply” being at home with my daughter. When I told people I was a stay-at-home-mother, they would most often ask, what I would do after, and remind me to keep some job in any form that could be written on my CV when I would inevitably be done with being at home and get back on the market.

“Do not let yourself become too reliable on a man’s income,” some old lady at a knitting event warned me when I told her I was a stay-at-home-mother. “You need to be able to be economically safe yourself, should anything happen.” Though I understood the sentiment, I was also aware of just how much I loved being at home with my little one. Doing the dishes with her, taking her out on the swing that we had put up in the old beech tree beside our home, and baking sourdough bread in the kitchen. Finally, there was a job that I felt good at and at home in. But that was not enough. Economically, all my work generated zero dollars. It simply had no monetary value. No worth.

Reluctantly, I began searching for jobs once again, secretly hoping I would not be offered a single one. At least then, I could hide my true feelings of really just wanting to stay at home on the excuse that I could not find a job.

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