Bailey's Chimney C&R is on INSTAGRAM now.  Fun!

People ask me how I can work out in the freezing cold, when its windy, and the roofs are covered in ice and snow.

I much prefer working in the cold to working in the heat.

People smile when I say that, as if I must be joking.

But I'm totally serious.  

Working in the winter cold satisfies my need for adventure, excitement, struggle.  Carrying a ladder up another ladder when there is snow everywhere.  Scrabbling up a snowy, icy propanel roof.   Kicking the snow off my boots before I enter the house.  Wearing gloves and a stocking cap, a turtle neck and a fleece vest and my work jacket with my logo stitched into the breast.  I sweat.

I'm sweating out there in the freezing cold, just like I do when I ski hard.

I guess I can see why it might be hard for a lot of people to relate to, but I really enjoy it.   I like the exercise, feeling useful, seeing my breath in front of my face, the rapport with the customers, how much they appreciate my work.

I like the views from the roofs of the mountains covered in snow.

This afternoon I was working in Arroyo Hondo, out on the mesa, and though I've spent lots of time out there throughout the years, something about the landscape, the pre-sunset blue and white mountains, almost took my breath away today.  I was carrying a ladder along and I just sort of stopped for a minute and gazed at the mountains, wondering how it could be that I'd never noticed how great they looked from that particular part of the Hondo Mesa, suddenly understanding why somebody would build such a nice house out in the sage brush.

I thought about taking a photo but my only camera is in my phone and it never does justice to big vistas like that, and those photos/, when I take them, always seem a bit anticlimactic.

And its not like its really that cold.  It's Northern New Mexico.   It's not like we're in Minnesota or something.  Here the air is nice and dry.  Its not that horrible wet cold like in Chicago where it feels like a million freezing needles penetrating you everywhere.  And the other thing is, I'm not outside the whole time.  I'm in and out of the house.  So its not like this prolonged freeze-fest that never ends.

I try to remember as often as I can that its important to realize how good I've got it, living here in one of the most beautiful places in the world, where it gets cold enough in the winter so you can get that snowy winter thrill, and its still fun to work outside.

THE BAILEY'S CHIMNEY STORY (Part 1)

How I got into, and then out of, and then back into the chimney business.

My grandfather, Lou Rose, came to Taos, New Mexico in the 1970's, after squandering the family fortune.

Lou was a small man, barely over five feet, and he looked like a miniature, bald, version of the golden-years Sean Connery. When he arrived, he had his 95 year-old mother, Amu, with him.

Amu was hard of hearing to the point where you had to yell in her ear to be understood, and every five minutes or so she would ask what was for dinner.

Up to that point, Lou had spent his life playing golf, chasing women, and spending money. He'd never had a job, he was 65, and he was broke.

A friend of his opened a wood stove store, so Lou got certified to install wood stoves. He'd had never even finished high school and his chimney certification was the first credential he'd ever gotten.

He scrounged up enough dough to buy an old van at an auction, and some second-hand tools, and he became Taos' main wood stove installer/chimney sweep.

He became sort of legendary. People couldn't believe a guy his age would climb up and down ladders, cut holes in their roofs, and worm his way through attics.

The funny thing was, he loved it. He enjoyed installing stoves more than he'd ever enjoyed anything. He was proud to be doing something useful. In his later years he finally experienced the joy of doing service.

When I look at his life, I realize it’s a blessing that he lost the money, because he was a lot better off after he went to work, and it gave him a chance to redeem himself.

His customers adored him. I remember one guy in Angel Fire, whose chimney I was working on, said to me, "If you're even half the man he was, you're alright in my book." Lou had installed his stove.

The chimney business is intertwined with a family redemption story, for me.

I still service those installs my grandfather did 30 years ago. They are perfectly done. I hold myself to that standard when I install stoves.

Lou died when I was 18. Seven years later, I'd been working as the cook for a dude ranch/hunting outfitter, when I moved back to my home town of Taos.

I was a playwright and a puppeteer. I liked seasonal work so I could save money and then take time off to write.

A guy named Wade Elston was looking to hire and train a chimney sweep. It seemed interesting, and seasonal, so I got a meeting with him and as soon as I told him who my grandfather was, Wade's beady, bloodshot eyes got all big and round, and he said "You're hired!"

The Bailey's Chimney Story (Part 2)

Wade told me that when he started his chimney business, when he ran into problems he would call Lou, and Lou would talk on the phone with him in the evenings, "explaining how to attach a chimney to a wall made of beer cans and stuff like that, you know what I mean?" Wade said. "And even though I was his competition, he helped me a lot. You know what I mean?" Last I heard, Wade was selling time shares in Hawaii.

I was 30 when I started my chimney business. I had an old Toyota 4x4 pickup, some tools, and one of those voice mail services where you call in and check your messages.

That same year, after an 8 year absence, I also went back to college to finish my degree. I was certified by the Chimney Safety Institute of America, and within a couple of years I'd build up a base of customers and gotten my diploma from UNM, summa cum laude.

But none of the jobs available to a new college grad seemed as appealing as running my own business in Taos. I bought a fixer upper house, wrote a regular column for a newspaper, and settled in.

Chimney work is a trade, like plumbing or painting or electrical. A lot of people don't understand that. I know the codes, I have the skills and the expertise to make sure your house doesn't burn down.

In 2007, during the slow season, I started volunteering for a national political campaign, a presidential race. The campaign staff seemed to think I was capable, and so they hired me to run the Taos County operation. I closed the chimney business.

The other staffers were young kids mostly straight out of Stanford or Dartmouth or wherever, and then there was me, the chimney guy.

I was out of my comfort zone and in a lot of ways, out of my league. But that's how you grow and develop. It was hundred-hour weeks of constant pressure, for really low pay.

But I never had joined the peace corp, I never joined the military; that campaign was a chance to serve my country. I acquired a set of skills I never would have known existed, and made lots of friends too.

In 2010, I created and coordinated a Congressional Campaign Fellowship Program for Congressman Lujan. The idea was to teach high school and college students how to be politically effective.

Then the Democratic National Committee hired me as regional field director for the 3rd congressional district.

My office was in Santa Fe, and I couldn't help looking at all the chimneys everywhere. I did a little research and learned that none of the chimney sweeps in Santa Fe were certified at the time.

It seemed like an opportunity.

After the 2010 election, I was burned out on politics. I left the DNC and reopened Bailey's Chimney Cleaning & Repair with a branch in Santa Fe.

I'd met Marc Black when he was volunteering for Brian Egolf's campaign in 2010. He'd volunteered to teach the kids in the fellowship program how to canvass, and we clicked. I hired him, trained him for a year, and got him certified. His wife Jenn Kilbourn became our office manager.

In 2012 we had four employees.

Dryer vents are one of the leading causes of house fires, so I decided we should become the experts in preventing that kind of danger. We got certified in dryer vent technology, and we are the only company in New Mexico with that credential.

I still do the occasional political campaign, as a freelance campaign manager/consultant. My last client was a district judge in a Democratic Primary race. She won by almost ten points.

Some people think its strange that I'm a chimney sweep but I also do political work. I tell them there's nothing strange about it: they are the two dirtiest businesses in the world.

In the meantime I apply lessons of political organizing to the chimney business, and sometimes it works.

Some of our customers will organize their neighbors for a day of chimney service in exchange for a screaming deal on our services.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I hope I get the chance to meet you soon.

This photo is by Heather Sparrow. She took it the first year I was in business, just after I started Bailey's Chimney Cleaning & Repair, and I've been using this image in my promotional materials ever since. I'm a few years older now than when she took the picture, and a few pounds heavier, but I still enjoy the opportunity to help my neighbors be prepared, self sufficient, and safe. Bailey's Chimney Cleaning & Repair does all aspects of chimney service: Cleanings, Inspections, Installations, Troubleshooting, Consulting, and Repairs. We are the only company in New Mexico Certified by the Chimney Safety Institute of America to service dryer vents. We are the experts in dryer Vent Evaluations, repairs, installation, and cleaning. We have offices in Santa Fe (505) 988-2771 and Taos (575) 770-7769. We serve all of North Central New Mexico.

My friend Dorie Hagler took this photo years ago on a way-below-zero day in Taos Ski Valley. That's me on the ladder. She did a photo essay/article on my chimney work for the Taos News.

This video shows the Bailey's crew hard at work cleaning a chimney near Arroyo Seco, NM.

1. Lay two logs side by side on floor of firebox with 4 to 6 inches of space in between them.
2. Crumple 2 or 3 sheets of newspaper loosely, place between logs.
3. Lay kindling across newspaper so it is supported by the logs but bridges over the paper
4. Lay a medium sized log diagonally on top of the kindling so that each of the bottom two logs will support it when the kindling is burning up.
5. Light the newspaper on fire.
6. The fire will eat its way down onto the bottom two logs once the kindling catches on fire.
7.  Once the newspaper is burned up, there will plenty of space for air to feed the fire.

This time of year has always been hibernation time for me.  In chimney world, the busy season is over.

The phone doesn't ring much.

Yesterday, for example, all I did was one dryer vent service job.  Today I have no jobs on the schedule.

The dryer vent job took me about two and a half hours, working by myself.  I took my time.  There was snow all over the roof, and a nice sheen of ice outside of the hot-tub.

The job was to clean a clogged dryer vent and replaced a crushed, torn, disconnected transition duct with a periscope transition (for dryers with not enough room behind them for a traditional aluminum transition from dryer to vent.)  More on dryer vents later--they deserve their own blog post.

It's been really, really cold lately.  Instead of moisture and water droplets on the insides of the windows (and I have double-paned, good windows) there is actual ice around the bottom and the edges of the glass in the morning when I pull the curtains aside.

I wipe off the liquid condensation with a towel and make some coffee.  The cat gets fed.

Yesterday it was negative 15 at my house when the sun came up, negative 30 in some outlying areas, negative 35 in the ski valley.  That means people are using their chimneys a lot and the phone will start ringing soon when chimneys start clogging up.

But for now I am enjoying some down time after a hectic busy season.  Sleeping till 8 a.m. is a luxury.  Taking the time to write this blog is nice, and now on day five (that means its January 5th today) its starting to seem a little bit like a routine.

I realize there will be plenty of days this year when I do not feel like writing the daily blog post.  Today was one of those.