Keeping the Freezer cold in a Power Outage
With all of the talk of electric outages, I’ve been thinking I should share what we do to help keep our freezers running more efficiently and help them keep food frozen longer during power outages. My mom has been doing this for many years and it’s something I’ve been doing as well. It’s so easy you’ll wonder why it’s not more common knowledge.
A half empty freezer like this one is not as efficient as a full one. It will also thaw out much faster when the power is out. Keeping your freezer running more efficiently and helping it stay colder longer is as simple as filling the empty spaces with containers of water to freeze as big blocks of ice. I use plastic milk jugs, my mom always used large square gallon freezing containers. I’ve been considering buying a few of these large plastic rectangular containers because they’d fit more efficiently in my freezer, but gallon jugs are FREE. A few years ago we received our dry month milk from the farm frozen for winter use, so my freezer was always full of milk instead of water. Each fall we also also purchase 8-10 reserve gallons of apple cider and freeze it as well. During these times we don’t need the jugs of water.
When we moved to Maine, I emptied all the containers and recycled them. I’m slowly building back up my stash of frozen ice with apple cider jugs. It’s a good thing Mr Chiots loves cider so it’s going rather quickly!
Essentially, this turns your freezer into a cooler when there’s no power. If you have enough of these in your freezer you could also move some to your fridge to keep the contents colder during a power outage. These containers of ice also come in handy for traveling. I always throw a few frozen half gallon jugs in my cooler. They keep things colder for much longer than loose ice and they don’t allow the water to get your food soggy when they do.
When you need to add food to your freezer, you can simply take out a few jugs of frozen water and set them beside the freezer. When you take out food and have space, put them back in. Another handy benefit is that this water could also be used as emergency water in a pinch. You might want to refresh it occasionally if you want to use it in this way.
Any great tips to share for those times when the electric is off?
A few more freezer/freezing posts:
Freezing in Glass Canning Jars
Keeping Your Freezer Organized
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SOLD!
You may remember that we put our home in Ohio up for sale at the end of August. We’ve had lots of people walking through it and had great feedback. About a month ago we had our first offer, which we didn’t accept because it was too low. Last Friday we received an offer, we countered, and the people accepted.
We spent the weekend working out the details and signing and initialing contracts. Everything has been signed and we’re on the road to closing. We even sold our additional lot along with the house, which was a huge bonus!
We’re optimistic that everything will work out and we’ll be closing at the beginning of December. If so, it will certainly be nice to finally be able to close out that chapter of our lives and feel like we’re 100% here!
How many different houses have you lived in?
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Back at the Old Homestead
We’re back in Ohio this week for a job we booked last year. It’s not all work, we’ve been enjoying time with family and friends. Of course we had to go back to the old Chiot’s Run to mow the lawn, harvest potatoes, and check on everything.
By the looks of all my beets, dill and other crops, the deer have been enjoying our absence and taking advantage of the all you can eat organic vegetable smorgasbord.
This sweet little cat was seen lurking around the week before we left. She seems to have adopted the gardens as her own now that our cats are gone. She’s stealthy and quiet, but did rub on my legs and stop by a few times for a pet while I was out working. I wonder if she’s using the pet door in the garage?
If you remember, late last fall I planted some Jerusalem artichokes I got at the farmer’s market. They grew well this summer, though the deer kept nibbling them off. I decided to dig them up to see what lay beneath and was pleasantly surprised with a nice crop.
I’ll be cooking a few tonight for supper so we can all try them. The rest will be divided up between my garden and my mom’s for future crops. From what I’ve read they’re more digestible if they’re fermented, I might save a few and give that a try too.
How’s your garden progressing at this late stage in the year?
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The Hot Box
Nothing makes a tough outdoor cat go soft and want to spend his days inside like a fire in the wood stove. We decided that the cats call it “the hot box”. Some mornings Dexter will even come in and look at it like he wishes it was on.
We’ve had a couple chilly mornings here, the house was down into the 50’s, so we lit a fire in the stove to warm it up a bit. It’s so cozy to stand by it drinking a cup of coffee. Dexter is loving it as well, if there’s a fire he’s in front of it until it cools down. No doubt, he won’t be much of an outdoor cat this winter.
We’re looking forward to heating with wood, something we were in the process of implementing at our house in Ohio until we decided to move. One of these days I’ll do post on the big wood fired furnace in the basement that will also heat our water in the dead of winter.
Do you, or have you every enjoyed warming up by the fire on a chilly morning?
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Le Potager du Chiot’s Run
My to-do list is super long, especially when it comes to cleaning, office work, and other things. All of those things are being put off in order to get the small potager behind the house planted in crops that will hopefully provide something fresh for our plates this winter. It may be too late to plant things, but I’ve got nothing to lose but a few packs of seeds.
This garden is approximately 20 feet wide on all sides making it almost a perfect square.
Before I could plant anything, the garden needed clearing of weeds and past prime plants. The weed were tall and all going to seed, not a good thing. Letting weeds go to seed only means much more work in the future. Surely you’ve heard the quote “one year of seed equals seven years of weeds”. I will do just about anything to not let weeds go to seed in my garden.
This garden is a small kitchen garden located right off the enclosed back porch. I will use it for herbs, lettuces, and other edibles that I want to grow in small quantities and things that are harvested while I’m cooking. Back in Ohio, I had all my herbs growing in the flowerbeds directly around the house for quick harvests.
While I was filling my wheelbarrow with weeds, I spent my time making future plans for this space. I’ve always wanted a traditional four square garden filled with mostly herbs (here’s a great illustration of a four square garden). This little garden will eventually morph into that. There will be rock walls on the lower side to hold the soil back in the garden, on the upper side there will also be rock walls to hold the lawn back out of the garden. By doing this I can level this space a little more for my traditional four square garden.
I’m going to call it “Le Potager du Chiot’s Run”. It’s kind of funny that the name of this blog is French, since I don’t speak it, but I do speak Spanish. I decided that all things around here will keep with the French theme. The chicken coop will be named something French as well, perhaps “Chez Poulet” or “Maison pour le Poulets” (any suggestions?).
Until that happens, it’s going to be a small working kitchen garden. Yesterday I managed to plant a whole mess of mesclun, ‘Winterbor’ kale, a few different kinds of carrots, and cilantro. Then I got rained out.
Hopefully today I can plant the remainder of the cleared area with beets, more kale, spinach and radishes. While I’m doing that I’ll keep dreaming and planning the future of this space.
Do you have different garden zones for different kinds of edibles, close to the house for quick harvests, main crop areas, etc?
