My Shetland sheepdog is a hardy beast, with fur as thick as a mastodon, bred to sit patiently, guarding the flock on the cold, windswept Shetland Islands.

So when I found Jack curled beneath a quilt draping off the couch, his breath showing in the air, I thought maybe I’d kept the thermostat a tad too low.

But tough times call for tough measures.

With all this economic turmoil, it’s a good thing businesses exist out there that are willing to do their part to help.

I speak, of course, of the “Amazing Free Amish Miracle Fireplace” advertised nationwide, including in the Parade Magazine insert in The Free Press.

Leave it to the good-hearted Amish to lend a hand to their cold-weather brethren.

I went to the company’s Web site to get my free miracle heater. It didn’t look like the one in the ad, with a luxurious hand-rubbed, cherry-wood finished mantle. The little steel insert alone was free, with a rather large shipping and handling fee. But, hey, they’re heavy and it no doubt takes the Amish a long time to make one.

If I want the Amish mantle to go with it, they start at about $500.

OK, not quite free, but really, it’s still a deal.

Have you seen the TV ad for fireplaces? It shows a half-dozen Amish men in a lovely and very clean hay barn, lovingly working on the mantles. They show a couple of Amish guys in a horse-drawn wooden wagon carrying two hand-made heater mantles across a covered bridge to the warehouse barn.

Considering they’re selling millions of these to shivering, nearly destitute Americans across the land, they have to be putting in some serious overtime. They no doubt hand-hew the trees, cut the boards, build them with hand tools and have to deliver them two by two. You do the math.

I can almost hear them in their barn:

“Brother Elum, we must work harder to keep up and help our struggling brethren across the land.”

“Yes, Brother Levi, I will redouble my efforts. I shall carry extra mantles on my back to the warehouse barn while the horses rest.”

Hey, wait a minute. I thought Amish don’t want their photographs taken?