I Ain't Movin'

     It's that season again.  Last year's meat supply is dwindling, fall's hogs are fattening in the woods, and my task is to organize, defrost, and clean the deep freezers in preparation to receive the winter store.  There is already a supply of frozen applesauce, broccoli, tomatoes, and other delights to work around.  I don't at all mind the moving, shaking, and shifting; I love to organize and consolidate anything.  What I do mind is when the food does not want to be organized and consolidated.  When we freeze large amounts of something, we often spread the packages out among several different freezers so that everything can reliably freeze, then I come back later to put like and like together.  Something squishy, like a quart bag of applesauce (we froze a very large amount of this), has a little time to settle into its spot before it freezes solid.  While doing my first round of consolidating, what should I find but one such bag that had squeezed into the slot of a plastic freezer compartment, frozen stiff, and stuck tight?  There was no human way to get it out.  The other packages underneath were trapped, but in desperate need of moving.  With some coaxing and scolding, I managed to wedge and wiggle an item or two out from underneath the bag of applesauce.  That broke the stalemate and slowly, one by one, I fished the other packages out as well.  Of course the applesauce stayed there, suspended more that twelve inches above the bottom of the freezer, but by golly, I had rescued all its captive neighbors.  I guess when I defrost this one, we will have a thawed bag of applesauce to eat.  I won't complain about that.




All the winter fruit and vegetables (save one) in their proper
place and all together.  So there!
        

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