Waffles!  Yup.  One of the things that we get to enjoy when we have the wood stove going is home-made waffles on the wood stove.  Now, waffles on the wood stove is a project.  The waffle iron has to get really, really hot to make waffles.  To do that, you have to take the round lid away and put the waffle iron over the hole, so that it is directly over the fire.  Then, you flip the waffle iron over from time to time to make sure that both sides of the waffle iron get really hot.  Then, when you see it starting to smoke, you open the waffle iron, spray both sides with spray cooking oil and pour ONE ladle full of pancake batter onto the waffle iron and close the lid.  Now, ask me how do I know that it only takes ONE ladle full of pancake batter to fill the waffle iron?  Wisdom comes from experience.  It took me quite a while to clean all that burned pancake batter off of the outside of the waffle iron and off of the cookstove the first time I did that.  And, how do I know that I have to spray both sides of the iron with cooking oil before pouring on the batter?  Again, wisdom comes from experience.  Once the batter is in the iron, the iron has to be flipped over once or twice in order to cook on both sides evenly.

The waffle iron is positioned over the fire.

OOO!  Yes.  Golden brown waffle, done just right.  My mouth is watering just looking at it.

One more batch of waffles and we are ready to sit down to breakfast.  You can see the fire peeking out around the edge of the waffle iron at the bottom.

You can see the two kettles on top of the stove.  I always keep the two kettles of water on the stove, as they help to add moisture to the air.  When the stove is going it keeps the house warm in the winter, but it also dries out the air.  So, keeping the kettles on the stove helps to add humidity to the air to keep the house from getting too dry.  I have two 55 gallon barrels downstairs out in front of the house that collect rain water from the roof.  I get that water and put that into the kettles on the stove because it doesn't have any minerals in it, like the well water does.  That way, when the water boils down in the kettles, I don't have to clean out the calcium deposits.