We drove to Lewisburg, West Virginia today to Greenbrier Foods. They are the family owned business that processes our meats when we need USDA inspected processors. Greenbrier does a great job. We appreciate their hard work. I have helped butcher lots of animals and believe you me, it is a joy to pick up nicely packaged white papered portions of meat.
Today we picked up the beef. We ate up the last of our beef a month or two ago. Even though we have had lots of other types of meats, there is something about red meat that makes me feel quite satisfied.
We have a tradition around here. The day we bring home the beef we have steaks for supper. A way to celebrate the abundance.
It is a bit surprising how few steaks come with a whole beef. Steaks mean a celebration.
Tonight we celebrated red meat. And Moose. And Coco, the mother of Moose.
The last steer we had processed was in February. It was good meat, nice and lean. But this meat is a bit more tender, a bit more fat. We think it is due to all the milk he scammed off of Coco every chance he could. That steer never was completely weaned. Probably all the nice grass this summer had something to do with it too.
Anyway, we are thankful. Thankful to have a nice way to enjoy grass in its red form. Moose never ate more than a handful of grain. He was a happy steer, free to range over our farm.
What a beautiful thing to have so many different wonderful things to eat that come off this farm.
PS It has been wet and cold around the farm. Drizzly. The wood stove has been fired up. We have kept it going yesterday and today. What a great way to dry clothes when the clothesline is out of commission! We felt quite proud of ourselves using the woodstove to dry clothes, heat house and cook our supper yesterday (vegetarian black bean soup). Multi-tasking the old-fashioned way.
PPS I have been looking up recipes for turtle soup. Anyone want to hunt some turtles?
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3 comments:
What rich gluttony to again read your posts before I go to bed each night. Such wonderful visions to fall asleep to. Love you guys!
Julie
I bet you can find someone to shoot turtles for you, but then you have to clean them and all. Good luck with that; if you do make soup I hope you write about how it turns out.
I think it is great that you eat your own beef. We do not which has always perplexed me. We just raise cattle and sell them and then buy the steaks and roasts back from Kroger. I am not in charge of this end of the business, obviously. I think if I were we would slaughter a steer every year.
My neighbors do the same thing as CountryDew does--they raise cattle but they sell them and buy meat from the supermarket. I don't get it. It's probably going to China before it comes back here to Wal-Mart!
I could never raise them myself because I just get too attached (I can barely look my neighbor's cows in the eyes, lol) but someday, when I get a freezer, I would like to buy a cow from a local farmer who raises them like you do. For future reference, do you sell your beef to the public?
www.GreenerPastures--ACityGirlGoesCountry.blogspot.com
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