My rooster was getting frostbite regularly until I started rubbing vaseline on his comb and wattles and bought the heat lamp bulb. It's one of those really big red heat lamp bulbs people put in their bathrooms. It's 250 watts and just goes into a regular (but not plastic) socket. It cost me about $10 and has been well worth it. I only run it at night when it's below -15 and the odd day when it is that cold all day. The vaseline helps a lot too. He struggled fiercly until I started stroking his comb with the vaseline. Then he got really still and just stood quietly though the whole procedure. I think he likes it. I've done it a few times. It's necessary anyway, whether he likes it or not. I laughed the first time, as one of the lead hens came up really close, watching, and asking a quiet question. When she got in his face he gave her a little chirp without moving and she went away. I guess she was worried. It was so cute! I remember that about Thunder Bay. The things that do grow well there get HUGE due to the extra long daylight. The blackflies and mosquitoes are fierce but only for a very short period of time, then nothing. They get so bad in May they drive the moose out onto the highways. I saw my only real life bald eagle up north and up close. I actually had to use the break to keep from running into him with the car. He was flying down the highway in front of us. HUGE and gorgeous bird with a wingspan much larger than our car. I had no idea they were so big! I never have the camera when I need it!

I put mine in the fridge, but somebody here told me to just put them outside which I did right away against the north of the house. They germinated really fast and well for me, oh I'm tired of talking about them. Half I've lost since transplanting into cell packs, the rest lack vigor, should be much bigger by now. Mine are Bluebird, dark blue with white eye. I've been trying to protect them from being beaten down by the heaven (what the heck??? Freudian slip, not sure it's heaven sent any more!!!) HEAVY rains. I'll just sit them in front, try to keep them moist when dry and put on the porch if it looks like a bad rain. They gotta toughen up or I won't get them set out by fall. I mixed in some seed starting mix with the potting soil, wonder if that helped somehow? Bad luck with most everything else. What freaky weather. Storm forecast for tonight. Nothing so far. 10-day forecast still tonight, Wed Fri Sat Mon Wed Thu. Half the time it is wrong.

We had a small chest freezer and my dad cut down some sliding wire baskets units for it. He installed them to slide sideways, and used 1/2 and 1/3 depth baskets. Between lifting some out and sliding others around we had access to all levels with very little wasted space. My current upright freezer has a bunch of storage bins on the shelves for various classes of food. And it's organized with the least ready to eat stuff on the bottom and frozen pizzas on the top. I can tell at a glance how the frozen cheese supply is, or if I need to buy chicken.

I've had chest freezers for most of my life and never had any issues with finding food (nor do I hate a chest freezer). I use boxes to organize my frozen veggies (one box per type). I have sections for meat and other frozen stuff. I use baskets for butter and stock. Anything else is labeled with a marker. I rotate the contents with each shopping trip (quarterly or so) or when I make stock/soup/chili etc. I've never lost anything nor have I had mystery product. I also put bottled water in there for storage and to fill up space. I defrost once a year, usually in the fall or early winter. Everyone is entitled to their personal opinion and should use what works best. If you are planning on long term storage, a manual defrost is the best option. The frost free (or self defrosting) units cycle heat to keep frost from building up inside. That seriously diminishes the life of any product you store in the freezer. In terms of size, go with larger. In terms of brands, well, that's personal opinion. You can buy the same products pretty much any where. That's personal preference too. The freezer we had when I was a kid conked out at 40 years old. In the past 22 years, I've had two. The current one is about 10 years old and has spent it's life mostly in an unheated garage (in TN). Having said that, note that manufacturing of appliances has gone the way of everything lately; seems like they are disposable and it's cheaper to replace than fix. Stick with a brand name you're comfortable with and purchase from a store you feel good about. Just keep dead bodies out of there.