What's in the freezer?

Trudy's freezer

I have a long term book project, which has a working title "What's in the freezer?' It would be a work of non-fiction stories based on what's in the freezers of a few friends. Each chapter would have a picture of the freezers prize possession, along with a story behind the frozen object. 

I have one chapter (and pictures) on wolf droppings in the freezer (fuelled by propane) in a Park Wardens floating cabin in the Broken Group Islands on the west coast. That chapter tells about the arrival of wolves on the islands, and their DNA, the poop on DNA or the DNA of the poop, so to speak. Another chapter is on bullfrogs -- freezers are part of the killed-with-kindness process which starts with a tub full of ice and ends in the frezer but you'll have to wait for the book. Then there was the rare bat in my freezer. Of course, I didn't know at the time there was a rare and endangered dead bat (if it is dead, does that means it is no longer endangered?) in the freezer until after I cleaned up the bat blood off the floor and exposed myself to potential rabies. The Health Agency couriered the bat for testing halfway across the country within hours of my innocent inquiry and you'll be happy to hear that the tests were negative. But, that isn't today's story either.  Nor is the frozen cougar head, which is a good story too, with a surprise explosion in a microwave (do not try to thaw a frozen cougar head by nuking it), but no, today's story is so much simpler.

Swainson's Thrush next to Camus seeds

Tonight I took a couple of pictures of Trudy's freezer. There was no reason to. It was like a surprise bed check but in this case a surprise freezer check as I just happened to be there and remembered my freezer quest. Besides, you never know what you'll find in Trudy's freezer.


There were three items of interest (aside from the Vanilla Ice Cream): a Swainson's Thrush (the Thrush is usually in the bag but for the photo, I exposed him somewhat) , Camus seeds (associated with the rare and endangered Gary Oak ecosystem of BC) and a 35 year old handspun Cowichan-style sweater along with a few, not rare, not endangered, but hopefully dead, moths, which was the whole purpose of the sweater-in-the-freezer.


The yarn in the sweater was spun (with integrity I might add - see the Integrity post) by Trudy and one of her friends and knit by a another friend. There is a wolf pattern on the front and a frog on the back. Last night the then moth-eaten holey sweater arrived at my door with Trudy looking for some handspun in natural colours to match the sweater colours. After returning home with some new yarns, Trudy had darned the sweater and, for good measure, stuck it into her freezer. By coincidence, I happened to ask what was in her freezer and lo and behold, the sweater, being prepared for another 35 years of wear.