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Comment by eatbitseveryday | Hacker News Reader

> rural Ontario having a well stocked freezer is not optional. Especially in the winter the power would go out so frequently it was a serious limitation.

This sucks, but is it not cold enough to put freezer items outside?

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You try lugging a whole deer's worth of venison outside to the snow every time your power goes out

Sure, that should take less than 20 minutes and I'd get my workout in for the day.

Also, are there not bears in rural Ontario? If there are bears (or other large predator animals) in the environment, putting food outside can be very dangerous.

Bears aren't usually a problem in the winter, with hibernation and all...

Only black bears, even in summer they're dangerous to the food, but not really that dangerous to you (as long as you act reasonably). Racoons are more dangerous to food, too.

There are bear proof barrels, which are frequently used for camping (and I'm not sure if I'd bet on them against a bear, but they keep racoons out), or if you don't have them you can tie your food up a tree and that does a pretty good job too.

I think the idea was to have the freezer permanently in a cold place like a shed attached or very close to the house.

And now every time you want something from the freezer you have to suit up. And forget grabbing food during a snowstorm.

How often are people going in their freezer??? I barely use mine. You grab something, cook up a week's worth of food. If you run out during a snowstorm, you just cook pantry food.

Are you made of sugar?

Cold storage like that is pretty common in the North (as are raccoon proof locks ;) ), and many people run outdoor woodstoves which require going outside to keep them running at least once every two days or so.

Snowstorms are rare enough, even in Northern Canada that you can usually wait it out. If it lasts for days then that's a different story, but I only recall one multi-day blizzard over the five years that I was there.

Canada also has summer.

No, Canada has only two seasons: winter and construction.

Everyone always talks about Florida not having seasons. That's a lie. We have four seasons, just like everyone else:

first summer, SUMMER, second summer, and sprautumn.

Madrid has 9 months of winter and 3 months of hell (nueve meses de invierno y 3 de infierno).

The solution to that is underground storage (root cellar):

https://www.wired.com/2016/04/store-wine-underground-inside-...

A chest freezer in a garage or porch solves this problem and will stay safely cold for days.

I'm hardly the strongest guy in the world but that doesn't listen exactly seem like a very strenuous effort. Am I missing something? Hell I'd probably just keep everything Ina chest freezer in the garage or shed year round located on an external wall

It's pretty darn heavy. The solution of course is to cut it into manageable pieces before freezing.

Frozen food is supposed to stay below 0 F (-18 C) [1]. It will be cold outside, but it probably isn't going to stay below 0 F all day every day. For example, the average January high in Timmins, Ontario is +13 F.

1: https://www.fda.gov/food/buy-store-serve-safe-food/safe-food...

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