When My Freezer Betrayed Me

The hum I didn’t hear

It was a Tuesday morning and I was in the garage rooting around for some ground beef. Darlene had a hankering for her skillet taco casserole and I had promised her I’d dig out a pack from the big upright freezer next to the tool bench. I opened the door and right off the bat something felt off. There wasn’t that gust of cold air that usually hits you in the face. I poked a pack of pork chops and it had the give of a water balloon.

Now, let me back up. That freezer has been our workhorse since 2003. We bought it secondhand off a retired mechanic in Sedalia who was moving to Florida. I paid him in cash and a case of Busch Light. It’s stored everything from last year’s venison to a 20-pound brisket I forgot to label. Never given me a lick of trouble.

Until now.

Turns out the breaker had tripped sometime between Friday night and Monday afternoon and I hadn’t noticed. I don’t normally go in there unless we’re grilling or the deep pantry’s running low. So everything from the elk sausage links to Darlene’s famous berry jam stash had gone soft and sour.

Why redundancy isn’t just a fancy word

I talk about redundancy a lot when I’m jawing with folks about preparedness, and most of the time I get a polite nod and that glazed look like I just told them I alphabetize my ammo. But here’s the truth: redundancy is the difference between inconvenience and catastrophe.

That freezer was one leg of our cold storage system. The chest freezer in the basement is the second. Luckily, I’d kept the really important stuff downstairs: breast meat from last fall’s turkeys, the butter Darlene makes from raw cream, and the big bag of yeast I keep for emergency bread baking.

It wasn’t luck, really. It was on purpose. I never trust just one machine with everything. If you’re relying on just one freezer or one pantry or one way to filter water, then friend, you’re asking for a mess when it eventually breaks down.

The nose knows

Here’s something I’ll share and maybe regret later. The worst part of a thawed freezer isn’t the waste or even the cleanup. It’s the smell. Sweet mercy. It’s like a mix of gym socks and swamp breath and something vaguely metallic. I had to toss the whole lot. Sealed bags, glass jars, the works. I even threw out the ice trays I kept in there to soothe a bum shoulder.

I scrubbed it down with vinegar, then baking soda, then finally just left a bowl of coffee grounds in there for three days. Darlene walked in on me sniffing around like a bloodhound and didn’t say a word. She just handed me a clothespin for my nose.

Lessons from a lazy breaker

So here’s what I did. First, I plugged that freezer into a cheap little outlet alarm I got online for ten bucks. It screams like a smoke detector when the power cuts off. I also started checking both freezers every Sunday evening. Just a quick peek. Part of my end-of-week reset. Right after I feed the sourdough starter and take out the compost.

I also took inventory again. Every single item. Wrote it down in pencil on a big yellow notepad. I like paper. Digital’s fine if that’s your style, but I’ve never had a notebook crash or require a password I forgot.

And if I’m being honest

The real kicker is how fast a tiny failure unravels a plan. I had gotten used to that freezer just working. I’d fallen into the comfort trap. That’s dangerous. Comfort will lull you. It'll convince you something's fine until it suddenly is not.

Darlene ended up making a lentil stew instead of the taco casserole. She threw in some carrots from the cellar and a jar of canned beef chunks I’d forgotten we had. It was actually better than the tacos would’ve been, though I wouldn’t tell her that unless she asks real directly.

All this just reminded me why we prep. Not for war or zombies or Hollywood-style grid collapses. For stupid little things like a tripped breaker on a humid weekend when you’re not paying attention. That’s all it takes sometimes.

You don’t need to panic. You just need to prepare like comfort won’t always be an option. Because eventually, it won’t be.

Recipe of the Week: Lentil Stew

This here is the lentil stew Darlene whipped up after the Great Freezer Fiasco of last week. It was a pantry meal through and through, and let me tell you, it hit the spot better than expected. No fancy steps, no trendy ingredients, just honest-to-goodness food from what we had on hand.

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon lard or oil (we used bacon grease, because obviously)

  • 1 yellow onion, chopped

  • 2 cloves garlic, minced

  • 2 carrots, peeled and diced

  • 1 rib celery, diced (optional but it was wilting anyway)

  • 1 cup dried green lentils, rinsed and picked over

  • 1 pint jar of home-canned beef chunks (or 1 cup cooked beef if that’s what you’ve got)

  • 4 cups broth (we used beef bone broth from the freezer downstairs)

  • 1 teaspoon smoked paprika

  • 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

  • Salt and pepper to taste

  • Splash of apple cider vinegar at the end

  • Optional: a handful of chopped kale or spinach if you’ve got any that hasn’t turned

Instructions

  1. Heat your fat of choice in a heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. I used my cast iron Dutch oven, the same one I seasoned after it got left out in the rain last fall. Still works like a champ.

  2. Toss in the chopped onion and stir it around until it gets soft and golden, about 5 minutes. Add garlic, carrots, and celery. Keep stirring so nothing sticks.

  3. Dump in your lentils and stir to coat them with the good stuff. Then pour in your broth and bring it all to a gentle boil.

  4. Add the beef chunks, paprika, thyme, a good pinch of salt, and a few grinds of pepper. Lower the heat to a simmer. Cover it mostly, leave a little crack so it doesn’t get too rowdy.

  5. Let it simmer about 35 to 40 minutes, or until the lentils are soft but not mushy. Stir it every now and then so it doesn’t settle like Missouri mud at the bottom.

  6. At the end, give it a taste. Add a splash of vinegar to brighten it up. Throw in the greens if you’ve got them, stir until wilted.

  7. Ladle it into bowls. We ate it with leftover cornbread from Sunday night. You could toss a fried egg on top or a dab of sour cream if you’re feeling fancy.

Feeds four hungry folks or two with second helpings and a bit left over for lunch. Darlene says it’s even better the next day, and I wouldn’t argue with her on that or much else.

This stew is a reminder that good meals don’t come from perfection, they come from preparation. And a little bacon grease never hurts either.

Lessons Learned From A Real-Life Disaster: Joplin, 2011

Back in 2011, right after the Joplin tornado hit, I drove down with a church group hauling tarps, bottled water, and duct tape. I wasn’t much for organized volunteering back then, but when I saw what happened on the news, I told Darlene I was going whether she liked it or not. She packed me a cooler full of sandwiches and a gallon jug of sweet tea and said, “Try not to come back with tetanus.”

I’d seen tornado damage before. I grew up in the Midwest. I’ve watched storm clouds roll in with that greenish bruise color that makes every dog go quiet. But nothing prepares you for seeing an entire town look like somebody took a cosmic-sized rake and just scraped it across the landscape.

What they needed and didn’t need

Here’s the first thing I noticed. Folks didn’t need piles of donated clothes. They needed work gloves, clean socks, garbage bags, and somewhere to go to the bathroom. One woman said the best thing anyone gave her that day was a bucket with a toilet seat snapped on top and a roll of TP inside. Not glamorous. Not Instagram-worthy. But it mattered.

A man came up to us looking for insulin. His supply had gotten buried under his collapsed trailer and he hadn’t had a dose in a day and a half. I had no idea how fast insulin goes bad without refrigeration. Real fast, turns out. We managed to get him a few pens from a nurse who was working out of the back of her minivan. That stuck with me.

Cash over kindness

A lot of folks want to help by giving what they have, but in a disaster, money talks. Not because people are greedy. Because gas stations still sell fuel. Grocery stores still charge for food if they’re open. Cash lets folks buy what they actually need, not what someone guessed they might want.

I remember one guy dropped off four crates of canned cranberry sauce. Said it was all he could spare. We thanked him, and then quietly used the cans to prop up sagging plywood panels around a damaged shed.

Phones quit but radios didn’t

Cell towers were out. The ones that weren’t had people stacked up like firewood trying to call family. But my little Baofeng handheld radio? Worked like a charm. I could pick up chatter from the fire department, talk to a ham operator named Doug who lived two counties over, and even get weather reports from Kansas City.

We were passing messages like it was 1974. And it worked. Radios don’t care if the internet’s down. I’ve got a couple in the house now, and one in my truck. Darlene finally stopped rolling her eyes about them after that week.

Comfort is more powerful than food

I handed a granola bar to a little girl whose house had been flattened. She took it, said thank you, and then held onto it without even opening it. I realized she wasn’t hungry. She was just overwhelmed. A neighbor came over and gave her a worn-out teddy bear and she curled up on the sidewalk holding it like it was gold.

That’s when I understood something I hadn’t before. People want to feel safe more than they want to eat. Food matters, but familiar things matter more when everything else is upside down.

That’s why we keep a bin in the basement now full of what I call “comfort preps.” Stuffed animals. Instant coffee. Crossword puzzle books. Darlene tossed in a deck of cards and a couple old paperbacks. I added a stash of peppermint candies and a clean pair of socks still in the package.

No one is coming right away

We were out there for almost 36 hours before any real official help showed up. That’s not a knock on first responders. It’s just the truth. Roads were blocked. Communications were scrambled. Everyone was trying their best but there wasn’t enough of anything.

If your plan depends on help arriving within the hour, rewrite that plan. Count on at least a couple days of total silence. You need enough food, water, light, meds, and sanity to make it through those first 48 hours without a single outside hand.

Darlene and I now run quarterly “no help” drills. That’s what we call them. We shut off the main breaker, shut off the water, and pretend nothing works. We only use what we’ve stored. It’s a pain. It’s revealing. And every time we learn something new.

You can’t predict but you can prepare

Not one person I met in Joplin thought that morning would end with them living in their car or sleeping on a slab where their house used to be. They were regular folks. Just like me. Just like you.

The thing about real disasters is they don’t wait for you to be ready. They show up when you’re planning a barbecue or fixing a screen door.

That trip changed how I prep. I still think about that little girl and that teddy bear. I still remember the look on that man’s face when he got his insulin.

It’s not about stockpiling for a fantasy. It’s about being ready for reality when it knocks your door off its hinges.

DIY Survival Project: The No-Power Rocket Stove

You ever try boiling water in a storm when the grid’s out and the propane ran dry? I have. That’s how I ended up cooking soup on the tailgate with a candle and a whole lot of bad words. After that, I built what I now call the No-Power Rocket Stove. It’s cheap, runs on twigs and yard scraps, and you can cook a full meal with it while the neighbors are trying to remember how their microwave even works.

Why a rocket stove?

First off, it burns hot and clean with almost no smoke once you get the hang of it. That’s important when you’re trying to cook without advertising it to the whole county. Second, it’s simple. No moving parts, no fuel canisters, no weird tools. Just fire, air, and gravity doing their thing. And finally, it uses what you’ve got. Little sticks, pinecones, bark, even dried-up cornstalks if you’re the gardening type.

What you need

  • 4 metal cans (one large coffee can, three standard soup cans)

  • Tin snips or an old-school church key can opener

  • A hammer and a nail (or a drill if you’re fancy)

  • Fireplace cement or clay (optional but helps)

  • A brick or two for stability if you want to get real proper

I built my first one out of old bean cans and a busted Folgers tin. Still works.

Step-by-step instructions

  1. Cut the feed tube.
    Take two soup cans. Cut the top and bottom off both. Then cut a notch halfway up one of them to create a little L-shape when they’re fitted together. This is your horizontal feed where you’ll slide in sticks. You want it to look like a lowercase “L” when it’s done.

  2. Prepare the burn chamber.
    Use the third soup can as your vertical chimney. You’ll attach this upright to the feed tube, forming a right angle. This is where the magic happens. Hot air rises, pulls in more air, and gives you that clean hot flame that makes the rocket stove what it is.

  3. Cut the big can.
    The large coffee can is your outer housing. Cut a hole near the bottom edge to slide your L-shaped feed tube into. You may need to widen it a bit with tin snips. Then cut a hole in the lid for the top of your vertical chimney to stick out.

  4. Assemble it.
    Fit everything together inside the big can. Slide your feed tube through the hole and attach the upright chimney inside. Use fireplace cement or packed clay around the joints if you want it more solid. I’ve also seen folks stuff the space between the soup cans and the coffee can with ashes or sand for insulation.

  5. Fire it up.
    Toss in a few small twigs and dry leaves. Light it from the bottom of the feed tube. Once the draft kicks in, you’ll hear that little whoosh like a jet engine made of bark.

  6. Cook something.
    Throw a small pan on top. I’ve boiled water in five minutes on this thing. Scrambled eggs, reheated chili, even a grilled cheese one time on an old cast iron pan that fits just right.

Tips from someone who scorched his porch once

Set this thing on bricks or dirt. Do not, I repeat, do not light it up on your wooden deck like I did unless you enjoy sudden excitement and angry looks from your wife.

Make sure your sticks are dry. Wet wood makes smoke, and smoke attracts attention. Also, the rocket stove doesn’t like big chunks. Think finger-sized fuel, not wrist-thick logs.

I keep one of these in my shed, one in the garage, and a mini version in my truck toolbox made from a single #10 can and some cutout holes.

There’s something mighty satisfying about cooking a hot meal with nothing but twigs and tin cans while your neighbor is trying to figure out how long canned ravioli stays warm in a dashboard.

Build one this weekend. It’ll take you an hour tops and it just might save your supper someday.

Wendy’s Corner: When the Wi-Fi Goes Out and the Kids Lose Their Minds…

Last Wednesday around 3:40 p.m., our internet went out during a windstorm. Not a big one, just one of those spring gusts that kick up all the pollen and knock a branch loose somewhere down the line. I didn’t think much of it until Charlotte came marching down the hall like a very small lawyer preparing for court.

“Mama, the iPad says it can’t connect.”

I was washing dishes and said something wise like, “Well, yeah, sometimes it does that.”

Then Luke piped in from the living room, “My Minecraft world won’t load and Jasper just stepped on my foot.”

So now I’ve got one kid panicking over pixels, another holding her iPad like it’s been personally insulted, and a Labrador with muddy paws walking across my kitchen rug like he owns the place.

Preparedness in a world that thinks Wi-Fi is oxygen

Look, I grew up with Dad (you all know him as Kyle) saying things like, “If you can’t do it with your hands, it ain’t worth doing.” He had me building fire starters from dryer lint while other girls were learning to French braid.

But out here in Oregon, east of the Cascades, even though we’re off the main grid and have a rain barrel system and backup propane, my kids still expect that the Wi-Fi will work no matter what. And honestly, so do I sometimes.

It’s amazing how quickly you go from calm to chaos once those little bars disappear.

Our low-tech boredom buster kit

That storm got me thinking. If my kids treat internet loss like a full-blown emergency, maybe I ought to treat it like one too. So we built what we now call our Boredom Blackout Box.

It’s a shoebox filled with the following:

  • Two decks of playing cards

  • A mini sketchbook and a tin of colored pencils (not markers, those dry out)

  • A set of dominoes I found in the junk drawer

  • A cheap wind-up flashlight (Luke likes to use it like a strobe, which is a whole thing)

  • Mad Libs and a pencil sharpener

  • Dried apple slices and a little bag of beef jerky because snacks stop most complaints before they start

And most importantly, a sheet of paper titled “Stuff to Do When the Wi-Fi Dies” taped inside the lid. It includes things like:

  • Build a pillow fort

  • Count Jasper’s toes

  • Write a silly poem about Grandpa Kyle

  • Try to beat Mom at Go Fish

  • Invent a new board game using items from the junk drawer

  • See how long you can balance a spoon on your nose (record is 42 seconds, held by Charlotte)

The part where I realized the kids are alright

After about thirty minutes of bickering and general aimlessness, something amazing happened. Luke sat on the floor and started building a fort out of couch cushions and empty Amazon boxes. Charlotte joined in and made a sign that said “No Moms Allowed (Except With Snacks).”

I gave them popcorn in a mug and let them go wild. Jasper sat under the table like a security guard and didn’t even beg.

When the internet came back around 6:15, neither of them even noticed. They were too busy trying to build a pulley system out of yarn and chopsticks.

My takeaway

We talk a lot about prepping for the big stuff, and that matters. But sometimes the thing that trips us up is a power blink or a fried modem. If our whole evening depends on a glowing screen, that’s a weak link I didn’t even realize we had.

Dad always says, “Resilience starts with the little stuff,” and honestly, I think that box of colored pencils and a bag of jerky is proof of that.

So if you’ve got kids, make a box. Fill it with weird little things that buy you thirty golden minutes of peace when the Wi-Fi goes belly up. Because sometimes, survival looks like getting through the evening without hearing the phrase “I’m bored” a thousand times in a row.

And for the record, I did beat Luke at Go Fish. Twice. He claims he let me win.

Weekly Prepper Challenge: 72 Hours, No Fridge!

This week’s challenge is simple in theory, rough in practice. I want you to unplug your fridge and live like it’s dead for 72 hours. No cheating. No quick little peeks. Tape it shut if you have to. We’re simulating a grid-down, summer heat, spoiled-everything situation.

Don’t panic. You’re not throwing anything out. You’re just not using it. Pretend it’s full of raccoons and leave it be.

What you’re testing

  • Can you make meals without cold ingredients?

  • Do you have enough shelf-stable protein?

  • How fast does the milk go bad?

  • What do you snack on when the cheese drawer is off-limits?

  • Do you have any kind of backup cooling method at all? Cooler with ice? Root cellar corner?

  • Are you emotionally attached to cold drinks? (Yes. Yes, you are.)

Rules of the challenge

  • You may open your freezer if it’s separate, but try not to.

  • You may use dry goods, canned goods, root vegetables, and anything sitting on a shelf.

  • You may not eat something and then say “Oh wait that was in the fridge.” Be honest with yourself.

  • No ordering takeout. This isn’t a vacation.

  • If you live with someone, get them on board. If they won’t join, at least warn them so they’re not drinking warm pickle juice and wondering what happened.

Tips to get started

  1. Inventory first. Write down what you’ve got in the pantry. Darlene keeps a notepad taped inside the cabinet door with a running list. If you’re the digital type, knock yourself out, but remember the power’s out in this scenario.

  2. Set aside a cooler. If you have one, fill it with ice packs and use it for anything that truly has to stay cold like medicine or baby formula. Label it and guard it with your life.

  3. Get creative. Oats soaked in canned coconut milk. Tuna salad made with olive oil and mustard. Peanut butter on crackers with sliced apples. You’d be surprised what tastes good when your options are limited.

  4. Drink warm water. This is the hardest part for most folks. We’re all addicted to that ice cube crunch. But guess what? Water still hydrates at room temp. You’ll survive.

  5. Take notes. Write down what worked, what didn’t, what made you cranky, and what you ran out of. That’s your prepper gold right there.

What I discovered when I did it

Darlene lasted a day and a half before she asked if I was trying to make a point or just punishing her. I ended up making lentil salad with canned beans, vinegar, and garden herbs. Not bad. Also discovered we were low on shelf-stable milk and totally out of powdered creamer. Big problem if you like your morning coffee not to taste like sadness.

I also realized how much I lean on leftovers. With no fridge, there’s no “just heat it up tomorrow.” Every meal had to be right-sized or get eaten cold later with a prayer.

Give it a shot. You don’t need a disaster to learn from one. Sometimes you just need to unplug your fridge and see who you really are at dinnertime.

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