Freezers, Pros and Cons

When we moved here, we brought with us a little, 4 foot long freezer. I am a 'sale' shopper so a freezer was handy for that. The previous owners of our house left a humongous freezer behind, one those ones where I'm pretty sure I can lie flat in (not that I would because I wouldn't want to give anybody any ideas around here). The freezer ran fine and came in handy when the garden started really producing. The nice thing about it is it's in the cold room and doesn't really turn on too much in the winter. Most people can't fill one freezer but last Autumn, both were jammed packed. Sometimes going down to get a roast was a foray that had me emptying half the freezer then leaning over head first, teetering on my toes and hoping I don't fall in. And if I did fall in, praying that the lid wouldn't slam shut on me as I lay unconsious having whacked my head on a frozen roast. Of course, if that did happen, it would be kind of poetic justice for the cow whose leg part I was looking for. So when Don mentioned that a fellow at work had a bunch of chicken stuff for sale and a freezer we went for a look. Ended up with all sorts of stuff, an incubator, a bunch of waterers and chick feeders and another four foot long freezer. What family needs three freezers!?!?! As it turns out, one who grows most of their own food and buys 1/2 an organic, pastured local cow twice a year. As well, feeds two large dogs a modified biologically appropriate raw food diet (and yes, I am aware that the acronym for that is B.A.R.F.)

But it's making me think. Three freezers, even though they don't run all the time are still consuming energy. And then there's all that plastic. Freezer bags are re-usable and I do tend to use other plastic bags as well. But I wonder just how environmentally sound all that plastic is. I probably wouldn't have given this a thought before moving here but the lifestyle does make one very environmentally conscious. And that awareness leads to one small change after another until I want to actually figure out a better way than having freezers multiplying like rabbits, so to speak.

I have a water bath canner so I do can tomatoes and pickles. I have looked into getting a pressure canner so I can do veggies too. The jars are re-usable and so are the rings. The lids can't be re-used and there's that pesky BPA thing with them too. But apparently there are solutions to that on the horizon from what I read. In any case, it's probably better than all the plastic and electricity 3 freezers need. But every pressure canner I looked at says do not use it on a glass top stove and guess what I have? I use my pressure cooker on the glass top with no problem but I guess it's different for canners. I think what I might start looking for is a used propane stove. Something I could set up in the fall on a temporary basis just to can. It's something I can think about and look through the classifieds, Used PEI, Kijiji... and may-be I can find a better way.