Broken Refrigerator and Today's CSA

Our freezer gave us another scare earlier this week. We tried the same technique as before. We defrosted the block of ice built up in the back, but when all was done and the food put back, the freezer would still not drop to its normal and safe temperature. What made matters worse was that the refrigerator side would not cool either. Did this mean we would have to call a repair guy? How much would that cost? Was it even worth it? We bought the fridge new but second hand from a not so nice lady several years ago.

After paying rent and health insurance the first week of this month we had nothing to pay for someone to come repair the fridge. We still hadn't even paid our electricity. So we panicked! Would we have to live with out a refrigerator for a while. Where would we store our food, our meats, vegetables and everything else? That made me rethink about the need for a refrigerator and our diets. Could we give up refrigerated food? Could we live on nuts and counter stored veggies and fruits? Would we have to live without milk and eggs and meats? I guess if we had to we could, but I'm not sure we could do it well.

Before we did that though we called our neighbor. We had considered calling our neighbor before but we felt bad for always bothering him and we assumed he wouldn't know how to fix it. We also wanted to try to fix it ourselves. It feels good to be able to fix something by yourself. When we realized we couldn't and we knew we definitely could afford a repair person to come fix the problem, we called our neighbor. Actually my husband did. I was at work.

While at my part time job (1-5 hours at the most a week) at the Y my neighbor and my husband unscrewed the freezer indoor panel. They said the coils were covered in one large solid piece of ice. They defrosted that and that is when my neighbor discovered the freezer heater was broken.

The freezer has a heater? Apparently so. Everyday we learn something new....So my neighbor and my husband waited for me to get home to watch our baby so that they could go to the store and buy the heater part. In the mean time our frozen food was in my neighbors freezer. Whew! That was a relief. That was our CSA meat and that stuff is expensive. We almost lost it last time too. When they came back they put in the new heater and then we all chowed down on not so eco-friendly store bought Mexican food for lunch.

Our freezer works now and all it cost us was the heater part and a free meal for my neighbor. That's how he likes to get paid for his labor, free food. He often talks about one of his friends saying that feeding him is more expensive than paying him. We all smile when he says that. In a way I guess it is and isn't true. My neighbor helps us so much we owe him more than we could ever pay him back, not that he asks us for pay back or anything. He isn't that kind of person, but we would like to repay him for his help. With the baby and work and everything else it's kind of hard to invite him over for a meal all the time though especially since he likes a lot of attention when he talks and our kids want attention too.

That same day we repaired our fridge and ate Mexican food for lunch I invited him over for dinner at 6 for spaghetti. It wasn't my best spaghetti. I was in a hurry to make the food, watch the kids, have my older ones to their homework.... My point is as I'm taking the plates to the dinner table the food in the plate in my left hand slides off and falls all over my daughters right arm. She begins to scream. I pull her long sleeve shirt off and rush her to the bathroom sink where I stick her arm under cold water. I just burned my kids with spaghetti and I felt terrible but we were lucky she had a long sleeve shirt on. Her skin was a little red but it recovered in no time.

Meanwhile my neighbor who is an elderly man who likes a lot of attention makes a few insensitive jokes about eating the food off the floor. I smile but try to ignore. He's an elderly man who has never had kids before. I think at first he didn't realize the seriousness of the situation and then when he did he was a little nervous and made jokes to ease his nerves. My dad is kind of like that sometimes. Shoot my oldest sister would say I'm kind of like that sometimes. Oh well....

So today our fridge is still working fine and just in time because yesterday we were almost all out of food. We had to go grocery shopping and today we had to pick up the CSA vegetables: more Poblano peppers. Yum! We also have more of that strange fruit persimmons, some cucumbers, some squash and some zucchini.