Cool Mac Gear

I love the familiar pageantry and traditions of Christmas, the trees, the music, the lights and decorations, the focus on family and friends, memories of Christsmases past.

And as a Christian of course the religious significance of the Christmas saga, the star, crèche dioramas and the iconic figures of the angels, shepherds, oriental wise men, Mary, Joseph, and the Holy Child in the manger.

Another thing I like about Christmas is that it’s in the winter, albeit early winter, and I love winter. Not that I don’t appreciate summer, but it’s a hectic time here where it only lasts about two and half months, in which you’re usually trying to cram too much in, a lot of it in preparation for winter. Indeed, the only season I really dislike here in eastern Nova Scotia is spring, which is characterized by a mud, cold East winds off winter-chilled Atlantic, pollen, and blackflies.

But I digress. Winter is here, and I’m enjoying it. However, it doesn’t look like we’re going to get a white Christmas this year, which is not unusual, as it statistically goes about 50/50 here. We have had some snow, as these photos taken last week illustrate, and the lake actually froze over earlier than usual, but the past couple of weeks have brought above normal temperatures, all the snow has been rained off, and the lake ice has developed to no more than about two inches thickness and is now are receding with open water patches returning, much to the disgust of impatient ice-fishermen.

Another thing that I like about winter is the sky, particularly when the moon is bright. I have a comfortable chair alongside the wood stove that faces two windows providing a nice vista of this of the southeastern sky, and one of the great things about being in the country is that skyviews are not obscured by light pollution. Venus and Saturn have been putting on a great show this month.

This month, Saturn reached its best opposition since the early 1970s, showing is brighter than all the stars in the night sky except Sirius. The planet is also eight months away from perihelion, its closest approach to the sun. Consequently, Saturn will be at its brightest both this year and in 2003.

Venus has been dominating the pre-dawn sky throughout December, and on the 7th, it was at its greatest brilliancy shining over 16 times brighter than the brightest star, and this week it’s still brilliant in the southeastern sky before and during dawn. The best views are about an hour before sunrise.

Speaking of the wood stove, as I was a moment ago, that’s yet another thing on enjoy about winter. Heating with wood is a lot of work, but there’s nothing like it still on a cold winter evening. We have two.

One is a Belgian Efel Kamina, a late ‘70s vintage cast-iron and sheet metal stove surrounded by a porcelainized outer shell. It puts out a lot of heat, and with its glass panel front, heats up quickly, so we use it mainly for chilly evenings in the fall, but it isn’t very fuel-efficient, so when the serious cold weather arrives, we switch to the Norwegian Jotul parlor stove, which is an interesting piece of low-tech engineering and an extremely efficient heater.

According to a Jotul catalogue that found on the Web, the 606 is a rare model. We bought this one in 1977, and it’s been our main heat source ever since (we have baseboard electric as well, but don’t use it much).

The Jotul is a lovely example of the art of iron casting, and it forces the hot wood gasses is to take a long and circuitous route through the stove, which is designed to maximize metal to air surface area in a compact package. The firebox is small, but the 606 manages to extract an amazing amount of heat from modest loads of wood.

We can even cook on it in a pinch, and with gravity fed water and a heat source not dependent upon electricity, we are assured of being more comfortable than folks with more technologically advanced systems during winter power outages. And with our PowerBooks (there are five in the house at this writing,) we can keep on computing and even go online so long as the power interruption doesn’t outlast the batteries.

Merry Christmas! to all our Applelinks readers, ans see you later in the week.

Charles W. Moore

Cool Mac Gear