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OP
OP
Dag is sitting on snowbanks - the piles of snow created by shovelling or plowing. That is different from snowdrifts, where the wind put the stuff there. The pile of snow left on the end of your driveway by the snowplows is called a windrow. Slush is what the roads look like most of the time here in the winter, because they salt the roads to melt the snow. Windchill is a measurement of how fast your body cools when exposed to wind. Just the word makes me shiver. I look out the window right now and I see flurries (snow both falling and blowing around simultaneously). We have had about six blizzards so far this year, and undoubtedly more to come (I don't know what separates a blizzard from a snowstorm).
My brother once built a quinzee (http://www.call-wild.com/quinzee.html), which is a hut built by hollowing out the middle of a snowbank.
On the coldest nights, we have to plug our block heater in, which keeps the engine block warm so the car will start in the morning. In the colder parts of Canada, people drive around all winter with an electric plug hanging out the front of the car's hood. (Everyone has driven away once or twice with the car still plugged in, and dragged the cord around town with them!) You can also get an interior car warmer (now there's a creative name) to keep the inside of the car warm. Frozen seats are quite uncomfortable in the mornings! If you have the money you get a remote car starter to start the car from inside the house, so it can warm up without you ever having to set foot outside.
What about clothing? In the photos, we are both wearing toques, the only thing worth wearing to keep your head and ears warm in the winter. Dag's wearing what my dad would call a parka, a big fluffy jacket to keep you nice and warm. I've got a windbreaker on, with a layer of fleece underneath. We're both probably wearing long underwear, though much more high-tech than the cartoon kind with the flap on the rear! Another of my most important items of winter wear is my neck-warmer. No, not a scarf, more like a knitted tube (a toque with no top), like a turtleneck without the sweater, to keep my neck and face warm against the cold winds. On the windiest days I'll have it pulled up to just below my eyes, and the toque to just above, leaving only a small slit to see out of.
OK, now two word problems. I have thought of two winter things with no names:
(1) We have a tool to break ice on the walkway. It looks like the things used to put pizzas in an oven at a pizzeria (another thing whose name I don't know), but much smaller, and made of metal. Please don't tell me it's just an icebreaker.
(2) What about the slushy, icy snow that builds up on your car's mudguards in the winter, and makes scraping noises on your tires when you make a sharp turn? You have to kick it off with your boots. What is the word for it???
(I'm hoping the red font will help you feel warmer...)
Last winter, a Minneapolis columnist had something of a contest to come up with a name for just that phenomenon, and I really liked the winner... I continue to use the term because it was so satisfyingly onomatopoetic. Great Grungy Underwhomps.
Great, naturally, because they have a tendency to grow to epic proportions before you know it.
Grungy because they're never pristine white snow, they're always utterly filthy.
Underwhomps because A: they accumulate under (and behind) the wheel well, and B: the sound they make when you kick them off.
That coinage did it for me! I'll see if the article is still in his archives. If I can find the link, I'll post it here...
I've just sort of automatically called it an "ice chopper." Though come to think of it the chopping motion has no similarity at all to chopping with an axe (that would be a wood axe, not an ice axe)
http://www.brookstone.com/shop/product.asp?product_code=319723
fenderwell glorp:
http://www.pseudodictionary.com/snowberg
Quick google shows that Rochester, NY explicitly denies ever having had a Slush Festival (http://www.rnychamber.com/relocating/residents.shtml).
Toadsuck, NE claims to have one (http://www.capnwacky.com/forum/messages/521.html) but there is some question whether Toadsuck, NE even exists.
OP
And what is the name of the similarly-shaped thing in a pizzeria?
*I wish the character map had an "approximately equal to" sign. That's twice in the last month or so I've desired one!
OP
Fadlage, what does one do at a slush festival? Aside from getting very wet feet, I imagine?
OP
ours too, Bean -- but you can't find a pretty on-line picture of ours.
check out the other link I added above for 'snowberg'...
several years ago we took a winter vacation, and there was a big snowstorm whilst we were away. we had arranged for snow removal from our walks by the neighbors, but we returned in the midst of the storm, were diverted to Duluth where we stayed in the tiny Duluth airport(?) for 24 hours, and returned home to find a 3-foot ice-dam (no mere windrow, this) at the end of the driveway, courtesy of the city snow plows. we had to use an ice-ax, as even the Brookstone ice chopper/scraper wouldn't have fazed it.
Oh, and traditionally beautiful warm sunny weather. In Ithaca. In March.
One of the pillars of the community, the front singer and titular leader of a local bar band* and, later, a member of the Ithaca Common Council declared, after the 5th Annual, "We should have Slush Festival every weekend."
*The Low Down Alligator Jass Band.
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