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Chris Hardie For Agri-View
Mar 8, 2025
Mar 8, 2025

1 of 2

An early-morning fire warms Chris Hardie’s house on a bitterly cold winter day.

Chris Hardie/For Agri-View

This is how to warm a household to fight a winter morning's cold.

Chris Hardie/For Agri-View

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Chris Hardie For Agri-View

The coffee was brewing as I crumpled up some newspaper and carefully constructed the beginnings of a fire. Outside the house the battery on my outdoor digital thermometer blipped out, apparently deciding the minus-20 temperature was beyond its capacity. Inside the house at the wood-burning stove, I placed the kindling and a few larger pieces of firewood into a pyramid shape. I opened the draft to full and struck a match.

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Chris Hardie and his wife, Sherry, live on his great-grandparents’ Jackson County farm. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2001, he is a former member of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council and past president of the Wisconsin Newspaper Association. His book “Back Home: Country Tales by the Seasons” is available through Amazon.