Friday, August 30, 2013

The Week That Was

Where-oh-where has this past week gone?  

It's been spent in a combination of trying to stay ahead of the garden's harvest, trying to finish a moderately sized outside project, trying to get my energy back from the week long attack of germs I contracted and trying not to panic about the near catastrophe caused by our 2-1/2 year old, 6' long Frigidaire freezer in the pantry.

First of all, it's amazing what the garden is producing considering the dismal start it got the first half of this summer.  I'm grateful for every little vegetable that has matured and can be squirreled away for our eating pleasure and sustenance in these coming winter months, but does everything have to ripen at once?

Yes.  The answer is yes.


Because of our whacky weather, even the "early" crops didn't have decent weather to grow in until mid-summer (or beyond) so I now have shell peas still ripening on the vine.  Today.  At the very end of August.  That's how it's happened this year, so that's how we'll take it.  At night, I dream of picking beans, of steaming pots and kettles on the stove, of jars pinging on the counter, of trays of quiescently freezing berries.  It sure is an intense period.

On Tuesday of this week, we discovered quite by accident that the floor under our relatively new, big freezer in the pantry was . . . soaked.  With water.  The tile had buckled and the sub-flooring was saturated.  Wha . . . ?  Huh?

In this terrible, hot humid weather we've been having, I've been like a crazy person (a quote from my husband), constantly checking and monitoring the temperature in the pantry.  It's never gotten over 70° and we've managed to keep (what we thought was) a good air flow in there.

Come to find out condensation was building up (why?  why?  WHY?!) on the back of the freezer (which was a good 3-4" away from the wall) and running down to the floor and under the freezer.

On the extremely hot, sticky, humid day when the problem was discovered, the condenser was making an abnormally loud noise and the side of the freezer was too hot to hold your hand on it.   I had to empty the very full freezer, we had to get the huge thing out of the small pantry and into the garage . . . 


. . . which necessitated taking off three doors and moving darn near every stick of furniture in the house.  (Believe me, deodorant was of no use that day.)


Then we had to rip up the ruined tile and start drying out the plywood sub-flooring.

The good news is that we didn't lose any food in the process.  The bad news is we don't know why we had the problem in the first place.  Detailed researching, gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair is still in progress.  I am not happy about the state of the pantry.  Husband is not happy about the huge freezer taking up needed space in the garage.

But it's a small problem compared to lots of others.  Could be worse.  We'll figure everything out.  I'm no longer sick to my stomach thinking we were going to lose everything stored in the freezer.  And that the freezer was going to catch fire.  And that the floor of pantry was going to have to be torn out.  It will all work out fine.

Now I'm going to go to bed early so I can dream of canning beets.

7 comments:

Sunnybrook Farm said...

We have a big freezer like that and I keep saying that we are going to change the way we do things and get rid of it as I don't think it is very efficient. But it is still there, on concrete so at least that is a plus.
Beets are something good to dream about!

Carolyn said...

Ooooo, I will now have freezer nightmares. Can you even IMAGINE what a complete disaster that would be if one would have to deal with an entire freezer worth of food?!

Sandy Livesay said...

Good thing you found the problem when you did. I would hate to have lost all the food in the freezer. Or had the freezer through the floor totally, or a fire.
That would have been ones worst nightmare.

Now I need to go check my freezer to make sure we don't have a problem in this rental home.

Sue said...

Cripes. Everyones worst nightmare. I'm so sorry this happened. I know that as packed as my large freezer is, I'd be devastated is something went wrong. I've got too much work invested in those hundreds of bags of fruits and veggies.
Glad you were able to get things moved--though I wish it had been easier (or better yet-NOT HAPPENED!!)
I do believe you have your crappy week of the year behind you. Smooth sailing ahead.
Now get busy, dear. The beans/peas/beets are calling!!!
:D

Anonymous said...

Oh no :( So sorry to hear about the freezer. I hope you can figure out what is wrong with it. Yeah for the garden producing finally for you!!!

DFW said...

So glad you found the problem before disaster struck. Don't worry, fall/winter will be here before you know it.

Akannie said...

O, poor Mama Pea...
I have been trying to slowly catch up on reading blogs, so I have missed all your "stuff"...and it sounds like we've been living in parallel Universes, you and I . lol All I do every day now is can , freeze or dry SOMETHING. All the garden stuff is coming in at one time, and I'm still recovering (I think) from that massive intestinal distress I went through. And it's been one little thing after another...sigh....

I did lose a lot of freezer stuff a couple of years ago, and am now canning or dehydrating twice as much as I used to. It was a nightmare, and I never want to go through that again. I'm down to 1 small newer chest freezer. I feel a lot more confident. lol

Hope you are all better soon. It was 98 herer again today and no rain for weeks. Any minute, my garden is going to spontaneously combust. I hope I have my camera ready.