And of course I don't get the heat loss in winter that I did with the old windows..
That's what I've noticed. We have both wood and electric heating, but we're definitely using less Kwh of electricity since replacing most of the windows. Up here, energy efficient features really pay off quickly.
but 'winter' here is a joke compared to yours.
I feel like pulling a Crocodile Dundee --- "You call that a Winter"? Now *this* is a Winter!" Actually, we're not getting the super cold winters that we once used to -- not that I particularly mind. I believe I've probably told you some goat stories about how cold it gets here and the kinds of things that happen during cold weather in kidding season, no? I used to go to the barn 3 or 4 times each night during kidding season to check for newborn kids. One time I slept in an extra hour or so -- meant to go out at 4 and went out a bit after 5 and there were two new kids that had been born sometime between 2 and 5. They were alive, but their hair and flesh was starting to freeze. I picked them up and carried them to the house under my arms -- their legs were stretched out and frozen stiff as though they were running... it was like carrying a couple of pine planks. I filled the bathtub with lukewarm water and set them both in the bath to thaw out. Their ears broke off almost immediately and the skin on their legs turned a bruised blue-black colour that took weeks to go away. Fortunately, they didn't lose anything more than their ears.
Sometimes I used to have to deliver kids in cold weather and there would be problems with a kidding, so I'd take off my coat and roll up my sleeves and reach in to reposition a kid so that the goat could push it out. Some nights, the amniotic fluid would be freezing on my skin within seconds after I got finished moving the kids. Felt like my skin was instantly transforming into rigid plastic. When it gets down below -10 F,...well.. that's pretty damned cold and everything freezes very quickly -- we often get weather that bops around from 0 F, down to -15 F or sometimes even colder in January. Once you start getting down into that temperature range (or colder), everything starts to be a real pain in the can. Stuff breaks, vehicles start to get balky and don't want to start, beards get iced up, and the cold air stings your eyes and burns your lungs. However, the air is usually really clear and the sky is very often a sort of brilliant blue.
Speaking of things breaking in the cold, a few years ago when one of my brothers travelled into northern Ontario to do a story on dog-sled tripping for a travel magazine. He got out of the rental car and walked around at the place where they were about to set out on their trip. About 2 minutes after he was in the freezing air, his Raybans busted in half. I can't remember how cold it was while he was travelling with the dog sled teams and camping in a tent -- something like -40 F or thereabouts. Now that's cold.
croc |
