Monday, December 15, 2008

What's that smell?? Part 2

So, for the past 2 weeks, there's been a smell in the basement. It started as a faint odor, and grew from there. At the end of last week, we got our septic tank pumped, thinking that the smell was maybe coming from our tank, which is only a couple feet from the house. Empty tank, smell was still here.

Today, I get a phone call at work from my beautiful bride. One of those "good news-bad news" calls. The good news was, she discovered where the smell was coming from. The bad news was, the smell was coming from our freezer FULL of meat, which had been (for the past 3 weeks) not closed all the way!!! It was my fault. I was the last one to close it, so I take the blame...

The good news is (and I thank God for this!) that we only lost about a quarter of the meat. I guess because of the moisture in the air, most of the meat in the freezer was encased in a block of frosty ice. The meat in the door, and the front part of the freezer, however, was encased in green/black/red goo. Smelly goo. And, the goo was on the bottom of the freezer. And it had leaked out of the freezer door, and was pooled on the basement floor.

The other good news that I really thank God for, is that the meat that we lost was mostly ground beef and ground venison. We unfortunately lost a few venison backstraps (the best part of the deer), and some venison steaks. Although, we just got a quarter of a cow (that's when i didn't close the door all the way), and the prime beef cuts were frozen solid in the back of the freezer (sirloin steaks, rib steaks, t-bones, roasts, london broils, etc), along with the last cuts from the half a pig we got last year (2 fresh shoulder roasts, spare ribs, and scrapple). In other words, the stuff we lost is relatively inexpensive to replace.

So, in the midst of chipping away at a glacier in the freezer this evening, I actually found myself feeling happy, and thanking God that it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Yes, I'm bummed about losing some of the BEST ground beef I've ever had (from a local farm), but, it could have been worse. A LOT worse.

And, the smell is gone...

2 comments:

Dave said...

Sorry, you lost some of your meat. Your right it could have been a lot worse.

During the first few lines, some nasty memories and some awfull smells popped into my head and my noise.

Thanks for the rememidner, my kids are always going through the freeizer looking for ice pops and forgetting to make sure that everything is flat and that the top closes all the way.

Liz said...

Wow, wee........that's disgusting! Good thing the prime stuff was frozen solid! I check my freezer all the time, just to be sure all is ok but we don't have "prime" meats, cause we can't get 1/4 of a cow....so all we eat is the cheap stuff. Never get steaks, etc...Hopefully Janet will come through for us soon........put a bungee cord around the freezer just in case......