A Lesson in SurvivalTHE PROBLEM WITH REFRIGERATORS My refrigerator is on its last legs. I have ordered a new one but I have to wait two long weeks for delivery. I only hope that the old fridge won’t completely die in the mean time. I am now face to face with a situation in which the life of modern convinces I take for granted is crumbling before my eyes. I feel a little panicky and vulnerable but I know my parents survived without refrigeration when they were young. How did they do it? They had an ice box. It did not require electricity to function and there were no mechanical parts to fail. It was just a wooden cabinet lined with metal, and it had a place in the top to put blocks of ice. People bought ice blocks from the iceman to put into their icebox. By the 1930’s iceboxes had been replaced by refrigerators that were powered by electricity, but at that time my Dad’s family didn’t have electricity. During the Great Depression they had to leave the house they were renting and move out into the boonies. The family was living in a cabin that they built themselves and it had none of the modern convinces I take for granted. They had wood stoves for heating and cooking, a pump outside to pump water from a well that Dad and and his brother Don had dug, and a root cellar to keep produce cool-ish. During the Minnesota winters Dad and Uncle Don cut ice blocks on a nearby lake. It was stored in a shed with the blocks packed tightly and covered with sawdust for insulation. The ice evidently stayed frozen enough to last through the summer. A FUTILE ATTEMPT AT SOLVING THE PROBLEM If my parents survived life without a refrigerator I guess I can too. Inspired by the ice box concept I decided to fill up my freezer with plastic containers of water with the hope there is still enough life in the fridge to freeze them into ice blocks that I can put in the refrigerator section if needed. I may not have thought this out too well. The temp in the freezer is rising, probably due to the energy it’s taking to freeze all that water. My Dad thought my generation was spoiled by modern conveniences and not cable of using basic survival skills. He was right. When something like my refrigerator stops working I’m clueless. MY SOLUTION It’s time to get real about what my life without refrigeration will look like. After endless days and sleepless nights worrying about my refrigerator, the temperature is now 68 in the fridge and 30 in the freezer. Everything that used to be in the refrigerator is in the garbage and I am getting creative about using canned food. I still have more than a week before my new refrigerator arrives. The chances of my refrigerator surviving that long are slim. I have decided to skip the idea of storing my food in a cooler that I have to refill every day with ice. It seems like using a cooler for a week is probably a bad case of food poisoning just waiting to happen. I bought a mini fridge instead. Even if I only need it for a week it will be worth it. Thanks to Amazon prime my mini fridge will arrive tomorrow. It’s small but it’s big enough to hold a carton of milk and a few leftovers for me and my cat. Plus it’s adorable. I found a retro inspired one that looks a little like the refrigerators we had when I was growing up. Those were the days when I never worried about the possibility the refrigerator could stop working. I knew my Mom and Dad would know what to do. They were my role models for survival. This experience is a reminder that I am a survivor too.
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Leslie Masona woman in search of her post-retirement future Guess what! By subscribing, you get notices about the latest Little Old Lady with Cats posts sent to your mailbox!
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(from an entry posted on 5/1/2015) “I definitely fit some of the characteristics of a little old lady with cats: Retired - check, Single - check, Like to knit - check, Have cats - check. . .I do not want to get stuck in my Little Old Lady persona, however. In fact, this blog is a risk taking experiment in exploring and redefining what I want my retired life to look like.” Categories
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