For me, this is the color of warmth. On a future day when a cold wind is blowing out of the north, this wood will keep us warm. The tree came down a year ago. Now I’m splitting it to stack for next year. Each piece, as it burns, will burn in its own way, casting its own warm glow. No two pieces burn the same way.

There is evidence of humans burning wood nearly two millions years ago. More than a million years ago, our distant, distant, distant ancestors, some 80,000 generations ago, gathered wood, thinking this is the color of warmth too.