CabinDwelling Checklist: Freezer

Ah, glorious fall. We've still been grilling up a storm, but because of my advancing age or the quantity of beer and mojitos involved, I didn't take any pictures AGAIN. So you'll just have to take my word for it that there was some very tasty food yesterday on the deck.

But the real news, my unwashered friends, is that I have finally gotten one of the items on the authentic CabinDweller checklist: the chest freezer in the front yard.

This joins the blue tarp, old Soob* with liberal bumper stickers, water jugs and used motor oil container thingey in all their ubiquitous Goldstream yard glory. Now we can hunt and gather with impunity, free of the restrictions imposed by the size of the usual freezer that comes with a fridge. A freezer in the front yard, in this context, is one of those life milestones you hit with pride, on a par with a getting your driver's license, turning 21, or to consider one's Alaska existence, knocking over your first moose,** making your first batch of dry fish, or the first time your eyelids eyelashes froze shut.

It also means not having to beg for freezer space from your friends.

The Zero Zone, and yes, that is its actual name, could not have come into our lives at a better time. Our houseguest brought more nigipiaq*** back with him from the coast. Between that and the halibut, salmon, moose, clams and other meat, opening the freezer has in recent days meant the risk of large, frozen items dropping out directly on to one's toes.

Freezer****, check. Next on the list? The requisite old, beater car in nearly driveable condition takes up residence in the driveway. But more on Darla later.

* This vehicle can also be an old Toyota SR5. You get the same CabinDwelling points for one those.
**Knocking over: not in the literal sense. I'm referring to shooting one. Of course, hitting a moose with your car/truck probably is a milepost on par with the others, and also worthy of some number of CabinDwelling points.
***Eskimo food! Thanks to the continued observance of sharing, we have at the moment in our tiny freezer: dried black meat, dry fish, muktuk, and seal oil in the freezer, courtesy of our kind friends/relatives out on the coast.
****Picture coming soon!

(Edited for lucidity and crap grammar on September 19.)