Connie Rabun of Hartshorn uses a wood cook stove similar to ones her mother and grandmother have used.

“Using a wood stove takes practice, even cooking on top,” said Rabun. “Cookies for 10 minutes at a time – that’s not such a big deal, but bread for 30 minutes – there’s some art to it.

“The biggest thing for me to learn was that you can’t just go in there, turn it on and have instant heat,” laughed Rabun. “It’s takes 30 minutes.”

Rabun’s Pioneer wood cook stove has a 12-gallon hot water reservoir, which provides hot water for the family in the winter. “Once we fire up the cook stove with the first cold snap, our hot water heater goes inactive except for showers,” said Rabun.

Rabun gets up at 5 a.m. to get the stove and food ready, so she can begin cooking at 6 a.m.

“When we go to bed at night, we bank the stove up as full as we can get it with wood, let it burn for a few minutes and then we choke the fire down, so that it smolder and put off heat all night,” said Rabun. “If it’s a really cold night, I’ll open the oven door to let a little more heat out in that part of the house.

“When I get up in the morning, it still has a few chunks of wood. When I cook breakfast in the morning, it will burn that wood all the way down,” added Rabun.

By burning the wood down, ashes only have to be taken out typically once a month.

Wood cook stoves often double as a home’s heat source in the winter.

When looking for a cook stove, find one that is airtight. An airtight stove will use less wood.

“Our cook stove will heat one end of our home,” said Rabun. “It is Amish-built. It may not look fine, but it is functional. I can run three canners at a time on it, which is wonderful. I cook up all the meat that is left in the freezer from the previous year.”

Wood cook stoves can be ordered online or through your local hardware or feed store.