As the colder months settle in across the High Country, there is a certain rhythm that returns to the homestead.

Fires are lit earlier, mornings take a little longer to get going, and winter creeps ever closer, whether you are ready or not.

It is one of the things I love most about living here.

No two seasons are ever quite the same.

One year you are knee deep in frost by April, the next you are still mowing the lawn in June while the fruit trees cannot quite decide whether to drop their leaves or burst into blossom.

This past stretch has been no exception.

Warm, golden days followed by proper cold nights have kept both the garden and I slightly confused.

Of course, while the scenery does its thing, the to do list ticks along steadily in the background.

Firewood needs to be cut, split and stacked.

Gutters cleared. Fences checked.

Roofs inspected.

All those small but important jobs that stand between you and a very uncomfortable winter.

And then there is the wood stove.

There is something undeniably comforting about a wood stove.

The steady heat, the crackle of a good fire, the way it breathes warmth into the room, while something slow-cooking and fragrant tempts you from within… Yes, it is all very picturesque until the moment arrives when it needs a proper clean.

For the truly diligent, wood stove cleaning should be done weekly.

For the rest of us mere mortals juggling life’s demands (or by just putting things off), you can stretch that to a fortnight.

Or, if you’re like me, you might wait four or five weeks and call it an “experiment” in just how bad things can get. All in the name of science, right?

Of course, waiting too long has its downside: your stove takes forever to heat up, and if you’re burning less-than-dry wood, like I have been recently, you’re left with a delightful concoction of soot and creosote.

Imagine opening your stove to find enough creosote to pave the driveway… but no, let’s not get distracted by entrepreneurial pursuits!

Cleaning it, when you finally commit, is a job in itself.

Lifting the lids, sweeping out ash, uncovering half burnt remnants of fires past.

There is always that moment where you realise just how long it has been since the last clean, usually measured by how full the hidden compartments have become and how long it takes to empty them.

Suggesting that small, regular effort might have been the wiser path.

And let’s not forget the chimney!

I remember some years ago I decided in a moment of confidence that can only be described as ambitious, to tackle the chimney cleaning myself.

At the time I had nowhere near the right equipment for the job.

But having armed myself with oracle-like knowledge gleaned from several online videos and an ounce of ‘she’ll be right mate’ bravado I started the job at hand.

Quickly I realised that despite my Pommy ancestry I was unable to achieve chimney sweep greatness like Dick Van Dyke managed to do in Mary Poppins.

Upon request from the young one and friends I did sing a bar or two of Chim Chimney to get us all in the mood, (in my head it sounded incredible!) and resulted in much merriment, I had just sung the lines a “sweep is as lucky, as lucky can be” the words still hung in the air when the chimney responded by releasing what can only be described as a dramatic and extremely enthusiastic cloud of soot into the room.

It spread with impressive determination, coating surfaces, furniture, and anyone within range.

It is fair to say the mood shifted rather quickly.

The chimney was ultimately ‘swept’, but the house required rather more attention than originally anticipated.

Things do not always go to plan.

Jobs take longer than expected.

Shortcuts have a way of circling back on you.

You learn, you adjust, and every now and then you end up with a story that gets retold, over and over again.

A clean stove burns hotter and more efficiently.

A swept chimney is far less likely to cause trouble down the track.

These are simple truths, even if they sometimes arrive with a bit more drama than expected.

So as winter settles in and the fires are lit each evening, there is comfort not just in the warmth they provide, but in the small rituals that come with them.

The stacking of wood, the tending of the fire, and yes, occasionally, the cleaning.

And my parting words of woodstove wisdom: having drop sheets available while you clean your stove is only useful, if you remember to actually put them down.

Ask me how I know!