Inventorying Freezers - July 7, 2024 @goldenoakfarm

On Sunday morning, I was up at 4:30AM, got my post up and cleaned the kitchen. Then I went to the barn and got the 2 huge coolers and brought them back. They were pretty dirty so I had to wash them off outside.

Then I got set up for when my general helper arrived at 8AM. We were going to inventory freezers and then clean them out. We started on the vegetable freezer first. There were a lot of old vegetables in there. I had held them over because the gardens hadn’t gotten up to speed. But now it was time to compost them.

Once good food was emptied into the coolers, we thawed the ice buildup and washed it thoroughly. My general helper loved the knocking of the ice off the sides of the freezer. It is a very satisfying exercise. Then we reloaded it once it was washed and dried.

The meat freezer filled all the coolers and some baskets too. We got it emptied of all the baked goods I am not eating any more. My general helper took them home, along with some old garlic pesto and some frozen eggnog.

Once it was clean and dry we reloaded it and started carrying everything back upstairs. By 11AM the cellar was neat again.

We found some treasures, like several bottles of frozen eggnog, a box of blueberries, and lots of strawberries. I was dismayed to find 28 lbs of hamburg in the bottom of one of the cubbies in the meat freezer. I had just bought more hamburg because I thought we were out.

But now I know what’s in the freezers again and it’s organized, so I can use the stuff that needs used up.

We dragged the baskets of old food to be composted into the office as that was the only cool place. We emptied dozens of boxes and bags of food and my general helper carried it to the compost pile. I think she made 4 trips.

Then we hauled all the boxes to the kitchen and I started running them through the dishwasher. It took 3 loads to get it all done.

We even remembered to inventory the freezer over the extra fridge upstairs, as I put newly processed stuff in there if there’s no one to take it to the cellar. So a lot of stuff went down to the cellar.

We took the big coolers back to the barn and we finished right when she had to go.

I’d been working on the bills/budget off and on since Saturday and chipped away at it for a while in the afternoon. When my brother got home, we started making Cherry Chicken Salad for supper.

I spent half an hour pitting these beautiful cherries and he cooked the chicken.

That went into the freezer for half an hour and then we mixed it up and had a nice cool supper.

After supper my brother went out and harvested all the zucchini that had been tiny things last week. He said there’s 1 more out there. We plan to use the 2 biggest ones in stirfry on Monday night. I will zoodle them for it.

It was wicked hot and humid here all day and will be all week, getting even worse after Tuesday. I’m planning on harvesting the peas again and processing them for the freezer on Monday. Whatever sugar pods I get can go in the stirfry. I also have a doctor’s appointment in the afternoon.