Kindling

There's a wood stove in the cabin we're staying in right now and we've had a couple of fires going a day.

I say a couple, because I keep letting the fire we light in the morning die out by not feeding it more big logs once it's burnt through the first few that I started with.

When that happens, I'll usually wait until it's night and then light another one at night to keep the place warm and cozy.

The trick with starting a fire is, you have to start small. You can't just light a big log on fire with the starter blocks. It's too big to catch by itself, and when I try the starter block flames up big at first, but then burns out. It doesn't last long enough to catch the bigger logs on fire by itself.

So what I have to do is go outside and take the hatchet and split up one of the bigger logs into smaller pieces.

It's cold out there, and there's a lot of leaning over and effort involved, because the wood they provided out here is hard to split and the hatchet is pretty small.

But if I put in that effort consistently at first, then baby the fire while it's getting started, eventually it'll get big enough and hot enough from the smaller pieces that I can start adding larger logs.

After that, I can leave it alone and not really worry about it too much, and it'll keep me warm and cozy for a while without any input or effort.

The trick is all in starting small and letting the fire build up slowly. Only once it gets going can I sit back and relax and let it take care of me.

From what I've seen, this is all true of businesses, too.