Word: winterize
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...addition to help from roommates, the college has a financial aid program called the Kimball Winter Clothing Fund, that helps students from warm climates who also need financial aid to buy the things they need to survive what the Financial Aid office calls "our blustery New England winters." The letter to applicants recommends various items of clothing, including waterproof boots, a hat, earmuffs and a scarf. But for those of us who don't have a pressing financial need, the College offers precious little to help through our first winter of black ice, wind chill factors and rivers that freeze...
...keep warm? Jefferson burned 10 cords of wood a month to get Monticello through the (relatively mild) Virginia winter. But Jefferson had a fancy standard of living. Living much farther north, I use four or five cords in an entire winter, and 2,000 gallons of heating...
...rough winter...
...pessimist, I'm getting ready for an atavistic, pre-petroleum winter. I stand in the yard, knee deep in bright orange maple leaves, and study the grain of the firewood, lazily choosing the straight grains first, the ones without knots or ropy torques that will clutch the blade and hold it, stuck like Excalibur. Splitting wood is a crude, rustic version of diamond cutting. Read the grain right, strike it there, and the wood bifurcates (chunk!) with algebraic cleanness...
...trouble, of course, is that most of the heat flows up the chimney. Count Rumford's 18th century fireplace design (shallower, built to throw more heat back into the room) helps a bit, but the basic idea remains Paleolithic. There have been times during subzero winter power blackouts when we have pulled a futon next to the fire and slept there, curled up as close as we could get to the heat without igniting the blankets. On the other hand, the wood stove in the kitchen radiates efficient gemutlichkeit--a cloying heat, like the house on a Thanksgiving afternoon that...