One advantage to northern living is the natural refrigeration we get. I’ve kept meat in big rubbermaid totes in the garage for better than a month with no real thaw.
My neighbor was talking about the insulation properties of straw and now we’re thinking about stacking straw bales with frozen stuff just to see how much we can extend the natural refrigeration.
Kind of appropriate considering the fact that my house sits on the site of an old icehouse that used straw for insulation.
Thanks for the reminder. I’ve been considering doing the same. Here, shade is important (not much atmosphere overhead at over 9,000 feet, and we’re a few degrees latitude down from you), but meat should stay deep-frozen for about three months in clean, well sealed, insulated containers.
Noticed something else during the short summer here (July). This is for folks who live in sunnier climates that are a little warmer than mine. A large water container left in the sun gets water pretty hot. We covered one with foil, shinier side outward, and the water actually got colder. Don’t know how much that would work at lower elevations.