This is a 'Bark-Up' Household

And that means that fifty percent of Norwegians would agree with me, while the other half would not.

The success of a Norwegian television program on firewood (when will the Discovery Channel copy it?) resonates with those of us who do heat with wood. If I could, I might watch it.

It excites passions among Norwegians:

“I couldn’t go to bed because I was so excited,” a viewer called niesa36 said on the Dagbladet newspaper Web site. “When will they add new logs? Just before I managed to tear myself away, they must have opened the flue a little, because just then the flames shot a little higher. 

“I’m not being ironic,” the viewer continued. “For some reason, this broadcast was very calming and very exciting at the same time.” 

To be fair, the program was not universally acclaimed. On Twitter, a viewer named Andre Ulveseter said, “Went to throw a log on the fire, got mixed up, and smashed it right into the TV.”

At one particular Northern California commune I remember, sitting and staring silently into the wood-burning stove at night was referred to as "watching Channel 47."  Forty-seven seemed like an impossibly high number back then.