Winter is Coming
Sharon September 11th, 2008
As long as we’re talking about genre fiction (our Dies the Fire discussion managed to get two comments from SM Stirling himself, btw – check it out!), I was recently reminded of my forays, a while back, into George R. Martin’s deep, dark, sprawling, sometimes brilliant and often nihilistic fantasy saga that starts with _A Game of Thrones_. One of the bits that struck me most (and the part that’s even remotely relevant to this post) was that the motto of the Northernmost kingdom is not something heroic, but simply this “Winter is Coming” – the idea is that in a society where winters can last for decades, the people of the north cannot afford ever to lose sight of the fact that winter is approaching. And I don’t just say that because it was 38 F last night here 
.
I feel rather that way about my own life. I live, as you all know, in the Northeast United States, and up until the last few decades, it was never possible for anyone to live their lives in my area without a constant, heightened awareness that winter was coming. Until fossil intensive routine road plowing and just in time supermarket delivery, winter required preparation. We seem to be on a rapid transition back to that model, at least in the Northeast, which relies heavily on costly heating oil. It may be that the strengthening dollar, short selling of speculators and other factors may lower the price of heating oil to affordability before winter, it may also be the case that refining capacity problems caused by Hurricane Ike, may offset our recent declines. In either case, the US is plunging into a solid Depression, and the ability of people to pay their heating bill may end up being less about the cost of heating oil per se than their ability to pay any bills at all anymore.
Meanwhile, the level of fear is rising in my region of the country and in other cold places. I’ve had more than one person tell me that they are worried about freezing to death in their homes, and a number of people ask how they will afford food and medication this coming winter, along with heating. Those relying on natural gas and electricity have both seen large jumps in price as well. In Britain, there’s a national call to relieve the crushing poverty of elderly war veterans, who cannot afford adequate food or heat. South Dakota’s fuel assistance program is already anticipating it will go broke by November helping people get an initial fill up. In Alabama, one of my readers, Rebecca reports a growing trend towards utility companies reporting homes not in foreclosure as “condemned” – while people are still living in them, so that they can shut people off with impunity.
Meanwhile the Low Income Heating Assistance Program that provides federal aid across the board is likely to struggle to meet growing demand and increased costs. Most states are seeing an increase of 10-30% in applications for aid already, and in many states, as many as four times as many people qualify for aid as the programs can serve. Meanwhile more and more lower-middle income families are likely not to qualify for anything, but need it. An average 20% increase in the cost of heating, plus the fact that as many as one in ten American households is already in debt to a utility company means that the winter is shaping up badly. And President Bush’s LIHEAP allocation of 2 billion is 22% less than last year’s funding.
And we know this. New England governors are already declaring states of emergency. I have heard many reports that wood, pellet and even coal stoves are backordered for months. Heating is the conversation topic out where I live. And most people know that they are going to be cold this winter. Now in some respects, this will probably be good for us and the planet – for solidly middle class people who keep their jobs, turning their heat down from 70 or so would be a huge environmental step. But for the poor, who already struggle to eat and heat, this will be a disaster. And my guess is that the climate net will be a loss – as people chose even dirtier methods of keeping warm, cutting down the great Northeastern forest, returning to coal, using older woodstoves because they cannot afford newer ones, shifting to coal-generated electric space heaters to replace natural gas or oil.
Disturbingly, my guess is that this winter will go down in history, not as the one where it got bad, but the last good one. The US is still able to borrow money, the Depression has not fully hit, and unemployment, while up, is no where near where it is likely to go. One in ten Americans may be overdue or in foreclosure on their property, but they still have their houses. Heating assistance programs and other subsidies are stretched, but still available. And in this election year, the pressure to keep the money coming and people warm will be greater. It is next year I worry about most. It isn’t just this winter that is coming.
With our fears, comes the rapid shift back towards a life in which winter is *always* coming. Those who need stoves must think about this long before winter – as must those who want pellets. If you plan to cut wood, it should ideally be cut during the previous winter to allow a full year of seasoning. And to pay increasing heating bills will probably require those who can afford it at all to space their bills over the course of the year. Because rising heating costs will impact our ability to buy food, growing our own and preserving it for the winter becomes one of the necessary hedges against the disaster. As towns and cities are strapped by lower property taxes due to falling real estate values and higher energy costs, there may be more of us staying home more – when the roads can’t be plowed, when other infrastructure problems arise, when schools can’t be opened or buses run (many school districts are already considering a 4-day school week). Utility companies are concerned about widespread power outages and people convert suddenly to electric space heating. That is, winter is about to go back to being cold and dark, a time to stay home, and a time when you have to be prepared for systemic interruptions.
Does this mean, as some have suggested, that those who live in cold climates will migrate en masse down south? I don’t think so – some will, of course. But the north has been populated by human beings for a long, long time, and we somehow survived without central hot air heat and being able to go out for beer in a blizzard. Warmer regions have their own disadvantages in the face of global warming.
I think we will adapt – and that adaptation will be part of a larger cultural and psychological shift at least partially back to a cyclical worldview, shaped by your climate. It was not for nothing that New Englanders were known for stoicism, frugality, practicality and hard work – those are virtues that go along with a world in which winter looms large. It won’t just be the cold climates moving towards a cyclical life – drought in some areas of the west, for example, will shift life there to focusing around the rains. Those living without electricity in the Southeast will again shape their summer days around quiet times in the hottest part. We are all bound to live more in our climate than we have been.
The unusually early cold weather here helps make that shift – even those furthest removed from natural cycles moves a little faster when the cool weather hits, when summer’s heat disappears and the mornings are brisk. It is our bodies and unconscious responding to the cues laid down by millenia of life in northern climates – squirrel time, it tells us. Once again, Winter is Coming.
Sharon
- home , natural gas , oil
- Comments(56)
Squirel Time, I love it. I find that here, I am overwhelmed with going to work in the office, raising kids, bringing in the produce (and putting it up), and thinking about going to get wood for the backordered wood stove.
That’s nothing compaired to folks who, I fear, are going around with blinders on and will one day wake up cold and surprised as to why that has happened. I think the ant and the grasshopper parable is one that should be dusted off and engaged by kids (and adults). There has been a safety net for two generations but when too many people hit it at once, well, it won’t hold.
“Winter is coming” has been my mantra for years — ever since I read the first in this long, drawn-out and yet to be finsihed series.
We’re already getting appeals from Crisis Ministry (one of the places that helps with winter heat) — and they used to wait until January.
One of the bits of fabric I got from the farmwife was the batting for a quilt. However, it’s a bit musty. I can’t see washing it as is: it would just fall apart in the machine, and if I did it in the bath, it would fall apart as I lifted it out. I was thinking of just using one large (or as little pieces as possibe) piece of fabric for the top and another for the lining, tieing it, and then washing it in hot water and vingar to get rid of the mustiness.
Any thoughts?
Ursula LeGuin has an older novel about a world with a decades-long winter; “Planet of Exile”. She always has very interesting things to say.
Mia, my thoughts would be along those lines – to baste it together so it doesn’t clump and maybe wash in the bathtub and sun dry.
That’s a lot of work, MEA for a piece of fabric that might not be salvageable. Could you lay it flat in the sun somewhere, and soak it down with water and vinegar, or water and a bit of bleach, and then let it lie out for a few days (flip it once or twice), then hang it? See of the combination of killing bacteria, airing and sun power can take care of it. That way, you don’t have to sit there sewing some icky smelling piece of cloth
.
Sharon
Right now I am more concerned that Ike is coming–right over my house. I’m 65 miles inland so the storm surge won’t reach us but the hurricane winds and rain certainly will. We are as prepared as we can be but it’s going to be a bad blow around here. Keep us in your good thoughts.
[...] Casaubon’s Book » Blog Archive » Winter is Coming As long as we’re talking about genre fiction (our Dies the Fire discussion managed to get two comments from SM Stirling himself, btw – check it out!), I was recently reminded of my forays, a while back, into George R. Martin’s deep, dark, sprawling, sometimes brilliant and often nihilistic fantasy saga that starts with _A Game of Thrones_. One of the bits that struck me most (and the part that’s even remotely relevant to this post) was that the motto of the Northernmost kingdom is not something heroic, but simply this “Winter is Coming” – the idea is that in a society where winters can last for decades, the people of the north cannot afford ever to lose sight of the fact that winter is approaching. And I don’t just say that because it was 38 F last night here
. [...]
But, but, but … I live to sit around sewing icky smelling things.
Oh, all right, I’ll try the see what nature does approach.
Thanks,
MEA
Yes, the SE will have its own problems. Heat and lots of it. 90+ temps with high humidity are all ready the norm in the summer in north Alabama, and projections show we will move toward subtropical and tropical heat. That will bring on more problems -malaria is all ready expected to make a comeback. Add in dengue fever and other such tropical illnesses and you have a recipe for disaster.
Then there’s the multi-year drought. The projections don’t agree as to whether this region will become drier or wetter as climate changes goes on. Wetter and we become more tropical in a lot of other ways. Drier and we become a desert.
I do not envy those in the North that have to make difficult decisions like this. We anticipate another North Texas winter in the mid thirties with the occasional overnight freeze. If we can’t find a decent wood stove for the farmhouse we’ll still be fine, if a little chilly. Summers are when we have to worry.
Yeah, we’re feeling pretty lucky that we bought our woodstove when we did (although we’re still working on picking it up). We bought the last one the guy had in the store and also the floor protector, which is at one of his warehouses. Hopefully this week… it’s gotten cold here at night too, but the house’s insulation is good enough so far that the heat hasn’t kicked on — it takes being cold day-and-night for the house to get down below 55 (and no, it hasn’t gotten down lower than 65, I think).
The stove store owner said that when they go to the Big E to display their stoves that they’ll probably only be able to take orders from people, as they’re running out of various models left and right. So I guess here’s another area where people won’t be getting stoves until next spring.
Meantime, I’ve picked up a couple of new knitting patterns, one for leg warmers and one for fingerless gloves. Lyle’s going to help me learn how to do cabling and stuff!
I’ve been going into total squirrel-mode in terms of stocking things up…yesterday was the first day where it really smelled like fall. For most of the rest of this week, it’s just been sort of wet.
At least winter will maybe be a good way to get to know some of the neighbors…when I was in Fairbanks, I was impressed at the number of thriving communities around practically everything that can be used as an excuse to get people hanging out together in a publically heated buliding.
Oops, sorry, was also going to say that we certainly aren’t planning on moving south. I couldn’t take the heat in Miami back in the 80s and didn’t really do well even in the Pioneer Valley in the past few years — humidity plus pollution = smog, which doesn’t mix with asthma in a healthy way. We’re now at 1,000 feet above sea level and I was able to mostly tolerate the humidity this summer. We finally turned on the AC for three nights earlier this summer, and for about a 1/2 hour a couple of times a week or so ago. This is as opposed to last summer when I had to have it on nearly every night for a couple of months, and for part of the day-time as well. For those folks who can handle the heat, more power to them! Me, I’m happy to put on another sweater and other wooly things.
Well, we had our first frost of the season last night(sigh)- did ok- have lotsof heavy duty row covers, the greenhouse, etc- and the blueberries, which are still really cranking, did just fine. But between all the fall color these days plus the frost- am in what ever happened to summer(what summer??), get ready for winter mode.
I have thought a lot about where I live- and how the pace of life had to have been very different in wintner years ago- and that has been confirmed by elderly neighbors who have grown up here. Although many people here heat with wood to some degree- generally it is just back-up heat with oil as primary- still most are used to just cranking up the thermostat. Everybody expects the back roads to be plowed early, the main roads plowed, sanded and salted, and everything to be business as usual despite winter. I do wonder how this will play out in the future. I know we have only been able to do this because of cheap energy so I’m not sure how long this way of life will continue….
I thought I read somewhere that Martin died without ever finishing his increasingly depressing series (or was that Robert Jordan who died without ever finishing his?) Although after reading the last depressing installment, I’m not sure if I care what he(Martin) does next. He killed off every interesting female character. Does anyone know if either of these authors is still alive, offering any hope that the series might yet be finished?
As for winter, we had one night in the 50′s and I thought THAT was cold. Brrr for Sharon–although I grew up in Buffalo and know what winter can be like up there. I was an adult before I found out it wasn’t that cold and snowy everywhere.
We have our wood in for the winter, and are stocking up on bird seed and dog food and canned goods that can be heated on the stove. We can be snowed in for a week or more out here, and in our 70′s no longer have to shovel out a 250′ driveway to get to work.
Kudos to Sharon for getting us all better prepared.
Robert Jordan died. GRRM is still alive. He says he’s still writing the series.
Yes, winter is coming. I was crudely reminded of this September 8 when a light freeze took out some of my garden plants. It is not unusual in Wisconsin to get a frost this early, but I wasn’t anticipating it. I looked at my fall beans with an “Oh shit.”
This sudden end to my garden has got me thinking I need to re-think my seed saving ideas and stick with crops that mature more quickly-up to 90 days at the most.
We moved to an old farmhouse this year, and by the graces of my family, have managed a cash payment regime over a mortgage (thank God). The unfortunate part is that we have had to update it a lot. We have spent most of the summer scrambling to update and winterize it before the cold sets in.
There is an oil furnace in the basement. We have not filled the tank. My husband is in the middle of installing baseboard electric heaters for the winter. We have under 900 sq ft on the main level, and the upstairs is unfinished, so we feel this will be OK in the short run. Long run? Dunno. My husband is convinced a pellet stove is next. Well, what if we can’t get corn or wood pellets someday? Lot of good that will do us. We have about 5 acres and over 3 is a creek bottom. I don’t know if we can manage much of a woodlot in this space-have to research.
I know several WI state caseworkers for low-income families. We have a new insurance available this year called BadgerCare Plus. One worker told me that they have triple the number of enrollees than they’d anticipated. Heating assistance is faring the same way.
We are going to be screwed in WI when it’s -20 degrees in mid-Jan and everyone has space heaters running on high.
Paula
Thanks MEA for the information. I knew it was one of them.
quick suggestion for washing/drying fragile things – batting
a. if it is strong enough – wash in the bathtub, let drain, for quite a while – then lift and hang to dry
b. if not – use pillow case – scoop it into the pillow case or another type of bag right while still floating in the tub – then lift out and hand to dry – right in the pillow case
NOTE: for things that don’t clump – can just toss into the washer, a front loading clothes washer is a LOT more gentle to fabrics – not much rubbing – mostly tossing.
the “pillow case” idea is not original – they sell mesh bags specifically for washing some things in the machine.
hope this helps
TJ
I think I read somewhere where people, human beings as a species, can live better in colder climates than hot ones. winter isn’t my climate’s season; six months of hot or hotter is the season people had to live with here; and they still do have to live with it although we have AC, cars with AC and lots of water available to use to cool off. And people did live here before that and no, not just the Indians who have always lived here. I don’t know where they grew their vegetables though–just a little higher up in the Mogollon rim country is a lot cooler than the deserts in the southwestern part of the state.
I could probably do without heating altogether here in southern Arizona. I had to live without heat in a cold snap one winter just after my heating unit caught fire and I hadn’t gotten any money from the insurance company. I was pretty cold for 6 weeks and used my fireplace a lot. I decided after that that it was easier to live with the cold without heat than summers without any cooling.
My high cooling bill this summer will be the next one I’m billed for. So far, my bills have been in line with previous years. Our natural gas rates in my utility company are going to go up I know so I’ll see how that will affect heating I use this winter. I keep my thermostat at 65 degrees in the winter. Probably sounds pretty warm to some of you Northerners!
thanks as always for your thoughts, your clarity of writing and your journal, Sharon.
cheers,
shamba
The funny thing is that I don’t feel sorry for me at all – I *LOVE* fall and winter – I like the cold much better than the heat. That doesn’t mean I like being miserably cold, but I am not headed south anytime soon. Heck – 38 degrees last night, we still kept the windows open in our room, since it feels so good when sleeping with the down comforter. And we don’t usually turn the heat on or start a fire until October at the earliest. I’m New England stock – heater chicken is the name of the game
.
Sharon
We have a woodstove – one of the “older” ones -, which we’ve decided to replace. It’s been in the plans for a year or so. So, early this summer, we went to the stove store to order ours. A couple of weeks after we ordered ours (with no problems, no backlog and only a small down payment), our neighbors went to the same store to order theirs, and found that there’s a wait for woodstoves until January! and the store was requiring 50% down. Crazy!
It’s been chilly here at night, and as a result the fall crops I planted are thriving. Our new woodstove will be here in a couple of weeks. We have been working all summer chopping and stacking wood and have about 10 cords (we estimate we’ll only need four … maybe five).
I’m not worried about the cold “this” winter. I am worried about whether or not we’ll have enough of the stuff my family likes to eat, and whether or not we’ll have the money to pay for it
.
Sharon,
I don’t feel sorry for me, either, and I don’t know how cold it got last night, but we, also, still have the windows open
. I was just saying to my husband this morning, in fact, that we should probably take the fans out of the windows now and close them at night 
.
I won’t turn the heat on (this year) until it after the first hard frost. I don’t know when that will be. Wool socks, sweatshirts, and fingerless gloves will work just fine for me until it’s cold enough to justify firing up the woodstove.
Wendy in Maine
TJ — you’ve given be a back up plan.
I’m going to try Sharon’s 1st b/c it seems less work.
Thanks.
I live in NE NY, not far from the “hill town” where Sharon lives. I’m in the city. I love winter, growing up in a family that loved it too. I learned as an adult that winters are best when I pursue outdoor activities, like hiking, snowshoeing and skiing.
I am worried about people who cannot afford heating bills but cannot endure cold very well either. I am fortunate for my ability to deal with the cold, but many people can’t. It is very difficult to know that many people will be or already are enduring hardships.
Kate
RE: the mass migration from Northern areas to more Southern areas, those of us in Alaska (or, at least in the Fairbanks area) are already noticing that this IS happening. Not in mass numbers quite yet, but more than is normal with winter coming on. All summer, I’ve been seeing requests on Freecycle for moving boxes because the askers want to get the heck out of Alaska before winter hits. I’ve been seeing offers of household goods from those same folks, wanting to get rid of their goods as quickly as possible.
It may not be happening in the “lower 48″ yet, but it’s happening here in Alaska. And, quite honestly, it just makes some of us long-term Alaskan residents more determined to hunker down and deal with it. It’s going to mean a change to our lifestyles and our living situations, but we’re a tough bunch for the most part. We’ll survive. And our children will be even more tough than their parents.
I’ve never really liked being told that “ooooh, you must be really tough to withstand going out to start your car at -40 for the drive to work in January.” I always have the mental response that no, I’m not tougher than most, I’m just not willing to live most of my life shut away and never leave the house just because it’s winter. Around here, that’s not tough, that’s normal. But, I’m wondering if it may be more true than I thought, this thought that to live in Alaska for very long, you’ve got to be tougher than folks who live in most of the other states. (In all fairness, though….. I wouldn’t survive a summer in Florida or Georgia or Louisiana, that requires a whole ‘nother level of toughness that most Alaskans wouldn’t be able to handle, I think.)
But yeah, we’re seeing a migration away from Alaskan temperatures and Alaskan winters. Maybe not a MASS migration yet, but a migration nonetheless.
We don’t get -40, but we get -20 a lot and my boyfriend (and a lot of our friends) doesn’t start the car – he BIKES TO WORK. That’s tough. Icicles in your nose hairs tough. Not me, I get on a nice warm bus and read my book for 20 minutes and then I’m at work.
I wish I could find a weatherization fund to donate to. We always give to the gas company’s winter heat/weatherization fund but I’d rather only give to a group that only does insulation & passive heating, it’s more useful in the long run.
We’re in Colorado Springs.
This year, at least, we’re not facing a huge increase in city utility fees for heating. None the less, we’ve stockpiled more firewood for our fireplace insert wood stove (purchased in 1994) this year than ever before.
Fortunately, winters are, for our elevation (6400′) and location, relatively mild. We can have weeks where the highs are single digits, and lows are below 0, and we can have 60 degree days in January.
We don’t need air conditioning in the summer either – we have perhaps 6 to 8 weeks where temperatures may exceed 90.
And – I’m trying to figure out what clothing I’ll need to bike to work during the winter – this will be the first winter in 10 years where my 1 way commute is 3 miles, rather than 50.
I’ll take a Minnesota winter, -20 and all, over a summer in the South any day. Born and bred here, love the cold and dark times. Of course, I love all four seasons and don’t think I could live without all of them. Each one is my “favorite”!
Has anyone ever heard of an Ashley woodstove? I found a little info. about them online saying they are efficient but I’m wondering if it really is even close to efficient by today’s standards. We inherited one with our house–its been stuck in the corner of the shed until we “discovered” it this past year (we’ve been here 4 years now and really thought little about it before lately).
It looks just like the one on this blog: http://professoryeti.com/20060218/columns-living-with-ashley.php
We may just end up putting it in the house someday, or maybe we’ll hook it up in the garage and live out there if things get really bad! For sure we’re keeping it, but I’d love to know more about what I’m dealing with. So if anyone has one of these or knows about them, please let me know.
When we lived in Northern Virginia in the 1980s, we loved the change of seasons — the foliage in autumn, the tulips and daffodils in spring and the one-time blizzard — 12 in. of snow we got on Nov. 1, 1987. I loved to watch the snow falling and going for walks among the snowflakes. The first time I saw snow I was 31 years old.
There’s a really satisfying feeling in having a woodshed full of split oak and a barn full of hay. Just about there…..
Vegan, I hope you won’t be offended, but I do find it really funny that you think of N. VA as “up north” when I think of it as “down south” – not as south as you, of course, but my ex lived there so I spent a lot of time there, and was always stunned by the big deal people made about winter there, when the winters were so mild
.
All depends on where you are from, I guess.
Sharon
I’m with you, Sharon! My in-laws live in SE Virginia and I consider that hot, hot South! D.C. and N. Va are pretty tropical in my book, too.
A couple of months ago I saw a TV programme on the life of Swiss Hotelier – Cesar Ritz. they showed his family home in a small Swiss village. The upstairs bedrooms where totally unheated and there was no barn below for getting the heat from animals.
The people slept many to a bed and used goose down doonars – that is the way we will have to endure the winters. The day time is fine – as you would have found Sharon – doing manual labour in the cold makes it much easier to endure and when you go into a house thats 60 Degrees F it seems warm.
The goose industry is one to get into..
Points are well taken Sharon.
I too have always preferred dealing with cold to dealing with hot. (Though I suppose next spring a similar post will be in order for those who are facing hot climates with questionable means to pay for A/C.)
Along with all the other things that make a climate livable or not, the amount of extra heating (or cooling) fuel one needs is a big one, IMO. One that has not been on the radar as long as energy prices were low. The amount of heating fuel one needs is not necessarily the same as how cold an area is either. Oh it may be if you have a traditional house with no access to solar. But if your home has solar energy gathering abilities (or you plan on adding them) then your energy needs can vary quite a bit from just the number of degree days for your area might indicate.
One example is the SW US. Winters here can be cold (quite cold if you are high up in the mountains), but we also have a large number of sunny days in the winter. A home or building that makes use of this free energy can get 75-80% of its heating needs from passive solar gain, with no moving parts just well placed windows and insulation. Active solar systems and homes with substantial thermal mass can do quite a bit better, coming close to 100% solar heat.
Something to think about, at least for the long term, when one is planning how to cope with high heating bills. Woods stoves and more insulation are great. But don’t forget solar, the only free heating source you’re likely to find.
I currently live in Anchorage, AK but grew up in northcentral Florida. At some point after I’d moved from Florida to Virginia to Alaska to Wisconsin and back to Alaska, I realized that weather is weather and has absolutely no bearing on my contentment with living in a place. I’ve done high heat and humidity and no heat and low humidity and various permutations in between. In Florida I really disliked air conditioning because it seems ridiculous to go from bone chilling cold to a sauna every time you went from one building to another. For five years I shared a place that had no air conditioning and we just opened all the windows, put in some window fans and got pretty inactive during the warmest part of the day (then I moved and still had no air conditioning). In Alaska, I’m getting really tired of buildings being in the low to mid 70s in the winter again because of the huge temperature variations. That’s not to say that I won’t attempt some level of heat inside since nobody needs frozen pipes. I just turn the thermostat down and stay active while wearing lots of layers and a hat.
But I think I’m not normal
One of the things I was predicting for Alaska when fuel and food get too expensive was a population migration back to the lower 48. I haven’t been seeing the same things on Freecycle in Anchorage as Kati is seeing in Fairbanks but the weather is milder here and overall I think the community is wealthier (it’s that or they’re being completely clueless about the state of things. I’d like to think the former and not the latter). However, as the prices keep going up, by next winter I expect to see more folks getting the heck out of Dodge. And I agree with Kati, people who consider themselves indigenous to Alaska are going to hunker down and do everything they can to stay and live good lives. Native peoples lived here for centuries in much harsher climates and were successful. Those of us who’ve been here for the last hundred years or less should be able to adapt, too.
It will be interesting to see how much population loss there will be from Alaska. Tiny villages are being emptied because the cost of heating has gone up sometimes as much as 80% and that’s if they get deliveries of heating fuel. They’re moving to more urbanized areas but I suspect there will be population loss there as well. I wonder when local governments will start to have to make hard choices about services when the tax base drops precipitously.
“Winter is coming” Amen, sister. It comes every other six months in these parts.
Kerri in AK
Lisa Z
Re; the Ashley woodstove- they can be pretty good- don’t know how old yours is or the condition though- my neighbors had one- and it cranked out lots of heat. A friend has one too and likes it- I don’t think they build them super-efficient like the QuadraFire types but they are ok- if in good shape. They’re not very expensive- they sold them at the hardware store in town here-probably still do.
You’re right, Sharon, about N. VA winters being mild when compared to the winters of upstate NY or VT.
I hope to learn to love the North Country winters as much as you, Kerri and others here do. I normally tend to appreciate and enjoy what nature puts in front of me. I remember a neighbor in N.VA telling me that I was “hysterical” because I went for a walk during a VA blizzard with my then 5 year old son.
I just hope I won’t be too old (now 57) to adapt to the VT winters. I could always bundle up and look like I’m going to climb Mt. Everest! My hubby says that in our old age we might end up sitting around the woodstove drinking hot tea and reading all winter long … Fine with us.
As soon as we learned about catastrophic climate change some years ago, we realized that for the sake of our sons we were obliged to eventually leave So. FL, buy land and settle in a northern region. We checked out OR, upstate NY and VT. We’re all now looking forward to a move to VT.
We have a small Jotul woodstove that was in the house when we moved here 18 years ago. It is a little gem that is very efficient, doesn’t use a lot of wood and keeps the front room quite comfortable and the rest of the house usable.
There is also passive solar in the front room. Lots of large south-facing windows. On sunny winter days sometimes we don’t need a fire at all.
I tend to get cold when I am not moving around, but this year I am trying to avoid piling on the clothes and developing better cold tolerance.
Thanks, Ani, for your Ashley woodstove comment. It’s good to have any little bit of info. on it. Ours appears to be in great shape. Now the concern is the cost of installing and where to put it. I have a feeling we may have it in by next winter, but not this one.
Vegan–my husband grew up in SE Virginia. He loves the MN winters and would not trade them. He does get colder than those of us born here, partly because he’s a skinny guy but also probably b/c he didn’t grow up here. He just wears lots of layers, wool socks and hats and long johns, etc. Everyone teases him b/c he never shows up outside without being completely decked out in wool hat, fleece, boots…He also loves the winter sports more than me–skiing, sledding with the kids, all that. You can adapt!
Lisa in MN
Lisa Z, thanks for the encouraging words.
Vegan, you’ll notice I didn’t say that I was instantly adapted to new climates when I moved there. I just don’t find the climate all that big a deal. Moving to Alaska from No. VA and getting used to the different climate took a full year. I had to live through a full cycle of seasons before I felt that I didn’t have to wear winter clothes all year long. I spent five years in Wisconsin and returned to Alaska last year – and it took a whole year to reacclimate. It might take longer for other people, maybe less for some. I’ve found that it helps to spend as much time outside throughout the year as possible. As I write this it’s 51 F outside and 65 F inside. In a long sleeve shirt and pants with a fleece vest on, I’m comfortable inside and out.
I’m sure for some people, acclimating is difficult or impossible (particularly for elders), but for the rest of us, it’s just a matter of time. Put on the layers when you’re chilled and pull them off when you’re sweaty. In a year, you’ll be more comfortable wearing less. In a couple years, you’ll have the routine down and won’t even think about it much. Hang in there!
Kerri in AK
I agree with those who think you’ll do fine, Vegan – I just thought it was funny that I think of N. VA as the south, and you think of it as the north. But you’ve got the right attitude – get out in it, treat it as an adventure. I do think that some kind of stove heating is also probably wise – that way, you can be quite warm next to the stove, and cooler at other times.
Sharon
I live in Ma I don’t like temp hotter than 85 and prefer 70s. We keep our thermostat at 50 and have a wood stove in the basement of our 50s ranch house. Our big living room window faces south. Dh and I lived with our respective parents in the 70s both households took the turn down your thermostat recommondations seriously so we rather like a cool house. Its often low 50s in the house in am before the wood stove gets going and we’ll joke a bit later that its a balmy 63 now
. I have a friend who keeps her house in the 70s I hate it.
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We like thermostat chicken as well but not sure its chicken when you like a cool house.
I was wondering though what is the “safe” winter temp in ones house? I suppose above freezing although most of us modern folks have to keep our thermostats at about 50 so our pipes don’t freeze. If we had no pipes I wonder what chicken (and cheapskate) temp my dh would like
When one sees the houses at Plimouth Plantation they weren’t insulated well although were small with a cude fireplace, what temps did they live in?
I suspect we could all live fairly well in temp warmer and colder than we now tolerate.
Beth in Massachusetts whose sorry to see the garden inventory wanning (although looking forward to carrots) but not sorry to see cooler temps.
Kerri, I’ll keep in mind your thoughtful advice. Thanks.
Thanks, Sharon. I think it will be a wonderful adventure.
It’s not that hard to change one’s arrangements to eliminate the need for large amounts of heating fuel. I personally am going to spend the winter here in upstate NY with a goal of 10 kwh/day of all-electric heat (that’s about $60 a month). No oil. No wood. No propane or natural gas. This is in a 3000 square foot factory loft apartment (of which we use about 650 sf in winter).
I live in new england and am scared. Good that state of emergency ic called. How about some real help? For example, I found this site which gave some ways and programs that help save bills, both from the gov’t and utility companies themselves.
http://www.helppayingutilitybills.com
Anyone have any other good sites or tips? Thanks
When I was a poor 19 year old I lived in a cabin over 7000 ft up Mt Baldy in Southern California. It gets below 30 every night for a few months in the winter.
Having no money to fill the propane tank I raided my moms cupboards for her electric blankets.
My sleeping bag kept me warm at nights but it was just cold if you sat down. I put the E blankets on the couch and chair and left them on medium for months.
The small living room of the cabin stayed in the high 60′s with the blankets and the sleeping loft was almost to warm for me. Sitting in the chair or on the couch in my underwear was possible all winter long.
A space heater takes 1500 watts on high two new E blankets use around a tenth of that. I believe this is a very cheap way for people to heat a small room in their house to live in in the winter.
Shiner, unfortunately, it is also a potentially very dangerous way to heat a small space. Electric blankets are not meant for sustained heating use, and can easily cause fires – and fires where you sleep are deadly. Add to that that if you sleep on/under them, the sustained magnetic field is probably not too good for your reproductive organs. I don’t generally recommend electric blankets at all, but I particularly don’t recommend using them this way – being warm isn’t worth the risk of fire and death.
Sharon
Here’s an image of a WWII US ‘winter is coming‘ poster (warning: it’s pretty big).
Look how tiny that house is! Maybe two-up two-down and a garage? Yup, that’s heatable…
Lots more American Legion posters here.