When I was a child we often visited family in the country surrounding the city of Toronto. You see our family arrived on various ships with the promise of land in return for farming. They lived and worked in the bush and their children were born in log cabins. That story began almost two hundred years ago and the struggle they endured had to have been seen as better than the life left behind.At the time there were no phones and a written letter, if you could write would take at least a few months to make its way back to family left behind. Now the homes I knew as a child are gone. The great cast iron cook stoves went cold a long time ago and the homes and barns have been removed. As we enter another winter season with snow and arctic air surrounding us once again I thought about the room, a great room, in one of the homes that had a small wood stove at the center.
