Born in the Wrong Time Period

“You know, it all began when we got rid of our microwave 8 years ago… remember?” I found myself saying, as together, my husband and I stared at the large, wooden structure in front of us.

 

 

 

It was Monday evening. My husband had just come home for work and was now observing our newly re-arranged kitchen. The changes included moving our large white modern fridge to a corner and replacing it with a large, stately antique icebox from the 1883. My steady-husband quietly stood there, wondering, I could tell, if I had gone plum crazy or if he was married to someone who just loves to add work to her plate.

‘Let’s try it out for a week,” I said, smiling hoping he would agree. He agreed and so therefore, the electric fridge was officially unplugged.

 

Yes, removing our microwave may have started the phasing out of appliances in our home.

That was about eight years ago now … I remember feeling so strange unplugging the microwave, putting it into the back of our truck and donating it to a thrift store. Family members said things, like “How are you going to heat up your food now? You better save it just in case you change your mind.”  Well, our mind never changed and the microwave never made its way back into our home. It seemed so strange, so out of the normal. My sister, at the time, did not have a microwave either. I was comforted as she said she just used the frying pan to re-heat things- her children did not seem to mind reheating their lunches that way and it did not seem a bother.

 

Next, we found we did not need the toaster oven, the toaster, even the bread maker was not used as we learned to make bread by hand. Soon, the dish washer was put of out of service as the girls were older and could help with hand washing the dishes. [We do currently have a dishwasher but I use it to store my mason jars in between canning batches, etc. The odd occasion will find out emptying the dishwasher and running it after having a large family over for company – mainly to ensure the machinery does not rust or seize up.]

Slowly over time, our lifestyle changed and our appliances were removed or stored.

 

It was a slow process … a gradual reduction of being plugged in … I haven’t used a hair dryer in quite a few years. Even something as small as a hair dryer was no longer needed. I just wash my hair at night and let it dry naturally.  We started grinding coffee by hand and using our bodum to make coffee so now there was no need for a coffee maker. I eventually stopped using our dryer, even though it was propane and did not cost much money to run. I have always utilized a clothesline, even when I only had one child, but it became more important to use the clothesline permanently as more children were added to the family. Five years ago, my husband unplugged the dryer and we have not used it since.

Then, the kitchen stove changed. We moved from a modern electric black, shiny stove to a beautiful creamy vintage 1930s stove (which I love and still own, in case I ever need to replace our current model) … and a few years later …  to an old fashioned wood burning cookstove. It has been quite the transition – especially since I did not know a stitch about cooking when we were first married. (Reminds me quite fondly, or not so fondly, of how I learned to drive standard – on my one hour one way commute to my newspaper job … no practice, just learn and drive … that was one scary commute …)

Now, with a tiny blessing from my (doubtful) cautious husband, we are trying out an antique icebox for the week to see if it will meet our needs.

Time will tell if I can ditch the fridge along with our other appliances!  I may need longer than a week to find out how to manage a new cooling system for our food.

Today, the girls helped me roll our big white modern fridge out of the way, give the floor behind it a good cleaning, I cleaned out the entire fridge and scrubbed down our antique icebox, which was just purchased off of kijiji last night. I already had frozen blocks of ice in hopes of this new project.

 

We do not store to much in our fridge, as our lifestyle and eating revolves around seasonal eating and home canned foods.
Many items stored in most modern fridges do not need to be there at all. Yes, we still have our chest freezers as I store all our meat that way. I will use the freezers, which are runing anyways, to make ice in the spring and summer months. In the winter, I plan on just freezing the water outside. We shall see. Sometimes I jump into these “projects” and ideas only to find lots of problems and complications. Nothing ever worth doing is easy … that’s how I see it. 🙂

There are three categories to this icebox …

I organized all the dairy in one category right beside (or ontop) of the ice, along with some homemade pie dough. We rarely have much meat in our fridge but if we do, it will also go in this category of the icebox.

To the left, I stored some fruit (watermelon) and some fresh veggies and my yeast.

 

On the bottom of the icebox, I placed a basket of jams, condiments and homemade sauces and pickles. Oh yes, and some tomatoes, even though I know they do not need to be in the fridge.

 

 

The icebox was built in 1883 and is good condition. It could probably use some sanding but we are just going to see how it goes first. I froze a big bucket of water yesterday and placed it in the icebox this morning. I cannot tell the temperature yet as I am waiting on a thermometer to be brought home. When we purchased our large, white fridge after moving into this home, I was thrilled to see an inside digital thermometer. Until then, I did not even realize that a modern  fridge was only kept at 3 degrees! That really  is not that cold! Half the time, I could easily use our outdoors as a fridge seeing as we live in Canada and it is generally colder here more often than it is warm. In the meantime, I only need to copy a 3 degree compartment and I will replicate the temperature of our modern fridge.

 

Shall I keep you updated? I know it probably sounds rather crazy and a bit strange to want to get rid of my fridge, but it has been on my mind for two years. First off, I love an old fashioned home and the modern fridge just stuck out like a sore thumb. Secondly, I love to save money and save hydro! One summer, I tried an experiment of unplugging the fridge during our daytime hydro hours (which are supposed to more costly) and plugging it in at night. My husband did not like this idea as he said it would cost too much to cool the fridge down again when it was plugged in. I did not get a chance to find out it if saved hydro or not.

 

I guess I was just born in the wrong time period.