Well, since Max was so kind as to post our winter photos, I thought I'd start a thread on winter words. This may have been done before (a search turns up nothing, though), but I was waxing philosophic about winter yesterday ('tis the only way to get through it!). Besides, it's a well-known Canadian tradition to talk (more like complain) about the weather, so I invite you all to join me. Anyway, to talk about weather, you need the right words to describe it! So I start with the photos themselves...

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???