The wife and eldest son were still gone when we got back from the camping trip on Sunday. I was surprised to find the eldest son's mini-refrigerator taken out of its temporary storage in the Dodge, sitting on the kitchen floor plugged in and running. I surmised, incorrectly, that he had decided to maintain his own stash of milk and goodies.

Turns out the main refrigerator had gone kablooie over the weekend. Freezer compartment on top still works fine (now that the wife had cleared out the miscellaneous items that had been jamming every cubic centimeter and preventing the cold from circulating), but barely any cool at all below.

Hence the mini-refrigerator sitting on the floor.

But not bad for the old refrig. It was a reconditioned, used refrigerator when the wife bought it in Colorado.

Before we were married.

As in more than 23 years ago. Not bad for a major appliance, bought used no less. We knew this was coming. The fan in the compressor had been making noise (not minor noise, loud noise) for, ohhh, let's say years. Loud enough that some nights you would go to the kitchen and unplug the thing for the night so you could sleep.

Built and maintained major deposits of frost on the hose in back, too. On the outside of the fridge, in the warm kitchen. Often a quarter inch thick (like now).

Wife checked out new refrigerators on her lunch break today. New one arrives Wednesday. So she has been cleaning out the old.

Yes, there was the expected piece of mystery meat. Covered with mold, since it had fallen behind the popcan rack, who knows how many months ago. But still nicely sealed in the sandwich bag. No aroma.

Be a good commercial for somebody's resealable bag product.

She pitched the packages of swordfish. Dated 1995. A gift from grateful hunters. Nicely smoked, but quite oily and rich.

Also pitched was a can of Ocean Spray Cranberry-Raspberry sauce. Not the mushy product available now in the mildly colored can, but the old stuff, packed dense with raspberries, in the bright, bright red label. At least a decade old. Probably older. Being saved for a special occasion that just never came up.

The oozing vegetative matter had not touched the side of the can, so she cut off the label and presented it to me. A memento of yet another wonderful product that is no longer available.

An opened can of homemade sloe (wild plum) butter, made from plums brought down by my boss one fall weekend when he was helping with my check stations. From the tree in his front yard.

The pits from those plums have sprouted, as I had hoped, in the raspberry patch. A few were transplanted along the back fence. These descendants of the sloe in this jar of butter bloomed this spring, for the first time.

We're talking an entire generation of plum trees growing up while that jar sat opened in the fridge. Date on the jar says eldest son was 10 years and two days old when we brewed that batch.

Wife never mentioned the antelope leg bone, with the massive deformity, that has been in there for at least three falls. Assume it just went into a freezer downstairs.

One of the first things she found was Bright Eyes, up in the freezer section. Sister and littermate to the heeler sisters, who died at the age of three days. A helpless pup, and my favorite, who never got to see the world. Who will not be placed in the ground alone.

She goes in when her mother goes. Whatever happens after that point, she will be with her Mom.