Root Cellar

Last year I mentioned the need for a root cellar.

Staple Solanums

This was predicated upon the expectation of a large potato crop–the results of my hand made potato box.

The final yield was, however, lackluster, and my other root crops, onions and garlic, don’t require root cellar conditions.

But the carrots did exceptionally well, and storing them in a combination of the crisper drawer in the fridge and the garage, well, was annoying.  So I revisited my plans to convert the crawlspace.

All I intended was to add some shelving, but I never got around to it, and my earlier attempts at using it for storing radishes resulted in a box of moldy radishes.  I abandoned the plan.

Then our chest freezer died.  Its thermostat had always been finicky, refusing to settle anywhere between 0 and -30.  And when the power went out, the compressor never clicked back on again.

It always had that busted corner too. Maybe that was part of the problem.

Everyone surely remembers the great toilet paper shortage of COVID.  Faced with a temporary yet inconvenient possibility of having to wait a few days to buy what we wanted immediately, people began stockpiling items they were most afraid of going a day without: food, sanitary products…ammunition…?

You never know when you might need to shoot your neighbor because they bought all the toilet paper.  And apparently that’s going to require a thousand rounds.

Anyway, on this list was deep freezers, to store all this frozen food that you might have to go a day without.  And now, almost a year after the quarantines, they’re apparently still hard to find.  But find one we did, at a former Sear’s warehouse, for too much money.  But it was either that or lose all the steak, and I’ll be damned if I have to go a day without steak.  So we bought it and lugged it home and hooked it up and…at that point I noticed the old freezer had finally clicked back on.

God dammit.

But then I got an idea.  We could take it back, or I could convert the old glitchy one into a root cellar!  Which is essentially just a giant refrigerator.  It’s impossible to keep a dirt cellar 33-40 degrees with 98% humidity anyway.  So while this approach might not be more efficient, it was certainly more effective.

But one problem remained: freezers aren’t refrigerators and aren’t designed to act as such.  Fortunately, that problem had already been addressed.  The market is flooded with thermostatic controller overrides, which turn the power on and off to the external cord independently of the freezer’s wonky and cheap internal thermostat.

That’s right, an override!

So far it’s working pretty well, though I might add some water jugs in there to help regulate.  It tends to turn on and off more frequently than I’d like.  I know compressors don’t like that.

Or I could just add a bunch of beer in there instead…for thermoregulating purposes.

And with one last addition, milk crates, I have stackable storage in there too, which keeps things off the metal liner (hopefully this will also prevent frostbite).  And even though these reduce the usable space, it’s still a ton of storage.  I even thawed a turkey in there last week, so there’s certainly uses beyond just vegetables.

I won’t have to occupy an entire fridge door for a week brining pork belly for bacon, either.  And that’s something I’m unwilling to go a day without!

–Simon

Wascawwy Wabbits

I managed to squeeze in a second successful hunting session.  Huzzah!  Not only that, but it was the most rabbits I’ve seen in a day out since the farm.

Here’s 3 more game meat meals, courtesy of the Klenke estate:

I forced her to help, but the kid wanted nothing to do with killing rabbits
One
Two
Three
Vae victus!

Big Iron strikes again.

–Simon

Incandescents

Hey look y’all!  Another lightbulb post!

You bet!  I have much jesting, at the expense of Baby Boomers and my wife.

***

Okay, so this is just one of those filler posts I come up with in winter.

But even in the mediocrity of suburban creativity can one ruminate.

One can also be that shameless self-promoter who constantly hyperlinks his own prior blog posts.

***

All right, the point.  Here it is…

It was the laassst incandescent…

Yep.  One such bulb remained, still functioning I might add.  Note that it’s not a GE.

I have a Sunbeam Mixmaster in the basement, replaced by the Kitchen Aid.  It still works, too.

But all bulbs grow dim with time, even if they don’t catastrophically fail as designed by Capitalistic anti-competitive anti-consumer anti-environmental bla bla bla grumble grumble and such….

Ahem.

It needed replacing.  I didn’t even know it was incandescent until I looked.  And I’m fairly certain it’s the last of its kin to leave this house, excluding the appliance bulbs which necessarily must remain incandescents.

Farewell, ye old supposed invention of Thomas Edison, who didn’t really invent the lightbulb bla bla bla history facts….

And despite the bleeding heart left-wing environmentalist Democratic bla bla bla guns immigrants hard work kids these days Hillary is really a man moon landing faked … conspiracy to rid them from the world, in some small way, I’ll miss them.

–Simon