The top three feet of my chimney needs to be rebuilt, and I’m homebound because of the pandemic. I’ve gone outside and stared up at the brick monolith projecting from the roof and pondered this project.

Q. Tim, I need your help. I’ve got a masonry fireplace that puffs smoke into the room when a fire is burning. It gets worse as the fire dies down. I’ve spoken with three different bricklayers who build fireplaces and have received three different answers. Confusion reigns at my home, and my wife is none too happy. Can you share what might be wrong and if there’s an easy fix to the problem? – Gary N., Dayton, Ohio A. When the cold weather starts to descend across the fruited plain, I start to get quite a few emails like Gary’s. Smoking fireplaces are a nuisance, and unfortunately the solution is not always easy.

Last year, after my wife and I realized we would have a kid-free week when our son and daughter went away to camp, we decided to organize our own summer trip. We talked about backpacking in Yellowstone or whitewater boating in Idaho, all big outings that required planning and long drives. Then the reality of responsible parenting set in.

Once upon a time, almost exactly a year ago, I found myself squashed under a very large, very stubborn rock. It was enormous. In my mind, it was the size of a house – or a very well-funded political campaign. And somehow it seemed to grow as time went by. Recovery from trauma, as it would seem, is a many-layered process of which I had no idea. I know this because the first time I accidentally landed on a talus field some months later, I found myself an inexplicable, blubbering lunatic. Suddenly, I was certain that all large rocks were going to come to life and obliterate me.

After being rescued from a climbing accident at Chimney Rock and recovering from the injuries, Ammi Midstokke has joined the ranks of the volunteers who saved her. “I get to keep my foot,” Midstokke said last weekend at a Priest Lake Search and Rescue weekend winter training camp. “That’s a big benefit of having rescue teams available.”

Sandpoint rock climber Ammi Midstokke, battered from head to toe after her foot was pinned by a 1.5-ton granite boulder in the mountains east of Priest Lake, was quick on Sunday to express thanks to her climbing companion and two teams of rescuers. “Bottom line: everyone is safe, I’m pretty banged up and spending the night under a rock sucks. I’ll update more as the morphine wears off!” she posted on her Facebook page.

Other than Hercules, Ammi Midstokke couldn’t have picked a better companion Friday to join her on a rock climb that went awry when a 1.5-ton boulder shifted, crushed her foot and trapped her on the talus slope below Chimney Rock. “I couldn’t move the rock,” said Jason Luthy, a backcountry medicine instructor.

Scott Downes doesn’t wear a threadbare cap, red scarf and vest. Nor are his cheeks camouflaged with soot.