Chillin' down on the Farm

On a lighter note, I had to do some shopping today.

The old homestead needs a new stove. The old, cast iron, cocina economica had finally burned through. It takes a lot of burning to burn through cast iron ...but sure enough, the old baby was not going to serve another winter. As it is quite a bit colder in the campo than here in Retiro, I needed to get on it right away... the kitchen is the only heated room in the entire house! And guess what is the source of that only source of heat!

It made me kinda sad, tho. The old stove was alread firmly ensconced in the place when el Abuelo, Don Aurelio (Yep, they really called him "Don") extended his holdings by buying our particular spread back in 1922. The house, already considered something of a relic, came with the land and no one in the family ever lived there; it was used as a summer place sometimes.

But no one is very sure of how old the joint is ...and therefore no one knows how old is the stove.

That neck of the woods (hee hee, there were no woods on the pampas) was uninhabitable if your skin was white until about 1840. The Río Salado was the DMZ between whites in the north and Indians in the south. Our place is firmly south of the river. You can also see traces near the existing house where a previous one had its foundation.

That's actually the technical definition of "pioneer" as opposed to the definition of "settler": settlers get houses that stand for years; pioneers get traces of foundation after a Querandí bon voyage party.

So the house was built sometime after the Indian Wars of 1840 and legend has it that it was built during the time of Rosas (deposed 1852.)

The stove might have been installed when the house was new.

So the idea of replacing that great old woodburner with some ugly modern monstrosity was bummin' me out.
Ah, Argentina! Ah, the internet. Lo and behold, the Instilart factory of Tres Arroyos is still in bidness and take a gander at "Cocina N°2". Down to the last detail, it's the same stove.

"Prestigio, Tradición, y Calidad desde 1898"

So another clue as to the age of the ol' casco ...and definitely a clue as to how old is the stove. Some fun archeology for me and I didn't even have to leave my keyboard.