Outdoor Refrigerators

We know lots of people who have fridges in their garage. What we didn't know was that refrigerators don't work outdoors in Wisconsin winters. After Thanksgiving we began finding the contents of the freezer (no meat, whew!, just bread and shredded cheese and juice and ice cubes and lard) way softer than we expected. And the apples and carrots in the fridge froze. What's up with that?

Fretting that we needed a repairman, I planned to ask some of the moms at chapel. Karen was the first I asked, and she has an outdoor fridge, and she knew just what I was talking about. They too were surprised their first year here. She told me not to call for service; she made that mistake already; there's nothing the repairman can do. Our only option is to bring the machine indoors, or treat it like a large Igloo cooler.

So now my job involves figuring out which fridge items won't be harmed if they're frozen (butter, lunchmeat, cheeses, beer) and reconfiguring where stuff is stored. Oh my goodness... this means I'll need to remember where stuff is so that I can find it again later.

We're discovering that it's a lot easier to simply put the food & drinks right outside the back door on the floor of the garage than to traipse all the way to the other side of the garage to fetch a refrigerated item that ended up freezing anyhow. And, hey, that apple-cider slushie last night wasn't so bad!