the title comes from a Feminist short film that I saw back in the late 80’s.
a to z today was going to be about the Faerie embassy but …
I am sitting on my meditation cushion eyes closed settling in, then eyes open and I am looking directly at a wallaby outside my room holding a large leaf in its paws munching away. not having my glasses on I peer for quite a while trying to work out what it is eating. I am almost certain it was a wild tobacco leaf. well that is new. closing eyes again centering breathing stillness and then another thought drifts in of the greyness of the day and perhaps the timer on the fridge needed to be altered or turned off altogether and one thought leads to another and I was writing a blog instead of meditating so I gave up on the cushion and will get back there later.
I will I promise.
oh the things that take us away…
my Friend Glenda loves these grey days when the clouds hang so low over our heads and she loves them precisely because her mother didn’t.
I don’t like these days, says Hilda they are so gloomy. Glen the teenager replies I love them they are so soft .
I have a mixed response – yes the softness and the feeling of being cocooned is attractive and the possibility of rain is exciting but wait it means the panels are missing out and I have to build that awareness into my day .
for thirty years we had a gas Fridge and then last year along with a couple of new solar panels we went electric. It is in market place parlance a bar Fridge .
the very first thing I noticed to irritate me was the noise they make – that electrical humming– that clumping on and off the crunkling and shuddering that overwhelms the kitchen landscape and no it is not an old Fridge.
I guess for most of you it is a background event along with all the other grid hums and buzzes and beeps.
some years ago John built a coolroom that pulls cold air in from the south shady side of the house and ever since we have only employed a Fridge in the hotter months.
since going electric I have realised that they don’t have to be on all the time, once everything is cold and the water in the wee ice box is Frozen then a few hours each day is all that is needed to maintain coolness.
so I wonder what it is with this 24/7 thing, this mindless keeping the Fridge on at all costs? Do we even care about our use of power or are we oblivious to the cost to the planet of our consumption of Fossil Fuels?
Do people look in the fridge for feelings ,to find purpose, to be seen to be doing something, for happiness, for something to take the pain away or just a vague I don’t know what to do with myself maybe the Fridge can tell me. these are some of the ideas explored in the short Film and warrant some reflection.
still disposed to grey outside I check the Fridge 2 pats of butter , a pickled cucumber , a jar of homemade hommous , a skerrick of Zoes green tomato chutney , leftover John made steak and kidney pie , a pot of breastmilk salve we made a few weeks ago (Fantastic skin cream ), horseradish relish,a knob of parmesan, some Feta and a few bottles and jars of “I don’t know ask the angel of Fermentation’. well that can all go in the cool room and we can turn it off until next summer.
I know a Full Fridge/Freezer is a sign of prosperity but does it mean we are eating Fresh or is this just market place propaganda and we have swallowed the story.
once Fresh meant we picked it off the vine harvested from the garden prepared with love and placed it before our Families with smiles all round. now we see signs of processed Food Frozen Food labeled Fresh .
really .
I can hear a daughter with the large shiny grey metal Fridge that she loves so much going oh dear mum is raving again and shaking her head.
so dear Friends I will sign off
For now …
xx
the faerie embassy 
We have a lot of grey days, cocooned in the low clouds and with lots of rain, not just the possibility of it. right now it is rather grey. But that’s Portland for you. I used to hate the electric hum of our appliances and even the lights give off a kind of buzz but I am mostly deaf now so if I can hear the hum and the buzz I consider myself lucky. I guess it’s all how you look at things, right?
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indeed corina – it is all a matter of perception and on another day I might share very different feelings about refrigeration but thank you – I had not thought of this from a perspective of deafness and how the sounds or lack of would take on a whole other meaning. thank you for sharing.
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I suppose I should be writing about your fridge or my fridge or fridges in general, but what I want to talk about is the rain. I love the cocooning that is possible only on a grey and rainy day. When I taught school and we had indoor recess because it was bucketing down outside, there was a warm, family feeling of my kids and me, happily occupied at games and crafts under the buzz of the fluorescent light fixtures. That’s the only kind of machine buzz I’ve ever really enjoyed and only then.
F is for (The) Faraway Nearby
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forget the fridge the grey is much more interesting and a great image of a school days . yesterday the black snake that lives under the verandah outside the kitchen wanted to come out but couldnt get past its head as the grey held fast , but today it tried again and with some sun appearing briefly midmorning it came out and went on its way. amazing how long it takes them to warm up.
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I think the concept of keeping the fridge running is that turning it off and on all the time actually wastes more energy, as then the inside has to work harder to get back down to the set temperature. But I could be wrong.
Thanks for visiting my blog!
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yes they are designed to be left on all the time and you are probably right that may well be the most efficient energy wise . we play with ours because it suits our system – I am currently investigating another form of refrigeration that uses a compressor that uses cold not heat to make things cold meaning greater efficiency and not required to be kept running all the time.
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Well! That was quite a diversion from your prev AtoZ posts but I still loved it. The question about running our fridges 24/7 is a good one. I think we’re all too scared to turn them off in case everything rots (don’t know why we think it will) and when ours gets loud it drives me nuts!
Leanne | http://www.crestingthehill.com.au
F for Family and Friends
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and over a period of time things would rot , I really think the onus is on the manufacturers /inventors /clever people to start offering us real alternatives in the kitchen and in our homes. as mentioned above I am looking at other designs to see what might suit us better. thanks for coming by.
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Very topical. After years of a miniscule gas fridge then a bigger gas fridge and finally back on the grid, the mega white monster that we love and appreciate died last night, only ten years old.
Planned obsolescence? What a waste
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how come when we wer kids appliances could seemingly last forever and now in my daughters generation they are on their 2nd washing machine in ten years. absolescence indeed – dont get me started.
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