Beefy's Meat

After enduring butcher day and waiting two weeks for it to hang, we finally got the meat back from beefy.  As we drove home with 518 pounds of hamburger, steak, roasts, and soup meat, I worried.  How would it taste?

When we've told people that we were raising him on grass only, many have advised against it.  If we don't grain finish (which means to fed grain the last 8-12 weeks), the meat won't be any good. It won't be marbled.  It'll taste bad.

But, I reminded myself, I've eaten grass fed beef before and it was good.   So we stuck to our guns.  Beefy started on milk and then ate only pasture and hay.

It was an experiment, and not a cheap one.  In beefy's 22 months, I figure we put at least $1,000 in hay into that steer.  Butcher, cut and wrap was another $400.  That works out to about $2.75 per pound. 

I was excited and trepidatious for that first taste.  We made hamburgers.  The smell was promising.  Then we tasted.  And tasted again to be sure.

The meat is good.  Wait!  It's not good, it's great!  I think it may be the best meat I've ever tasted!

As I enjoyed that amazing hamburger, suddenly beefy's face flashed before me.  This amazing meat came at a sacrifice.  It was a gift from God and a gift from beefy.  My heart filled with gratitude and reverence.  

One of the reasons we started this life was to get away from the industrial food system. Today I found a gift I didn't expect.  I have never reverenced meat before, and I suddenly feel the hollow that left in my life.  I have lived my entire life in deficit because I didn't experience the depth of honor that meat brings.  Today God gifted me with a reverence that makes me feel like a more complete human being. 

Beefy's Last Day

We've known this was coming for the past two years.  We got beefy as a little bull calf to raise for meat.  We've butchered chickens and this butchering we didn't have to do ourselves.  You'd think that would make it easier. 

The day began with my twins dispensing one last hug and taking one last picture.  The girls knew they didn't want to be anywhere near so the twins went to a friend's house and the older girls dashed for Moxie.

The fellow did a good job.  My husband walked beefy out to where we wanted him. We had some grain waiting in a bucket. The fellow just walked over and it was over before beefy noticed.

But it wasn't over for us.  Seeing the guy with a rifle, I darted around the corner and tried not to think.  When I heard the shot, I scurried to the cow shed and stayed with the living cows.  We had them all tied up so they couldn't see anything.   I could hear the compressor running and the smell wafted over. 

They drove off in less than half an hour, leaving the heart and liver in a bucket, the hide lying on the ground, and a pool of blood that wasn't as enormous as I had feared.

What a hard day.  Beefy was such a good cow.  He hardly needed a rope to be lead.  I wonder if eating meat from a cow you didn't know is easier.  Well, I know it is, but is it right?  When beefy's meat arrives in our freezer, we will honor it in a way that we haven't honored meat before.  We will honor it in a way that all meat deserves to be honored.

My daughters are handling this better than I am.  As I looked down at his hide, I said, "oh my gosh, it's beefy," and my daughter said, "no, beefy is in heaven with Jesus. These are just his remains and we can't waste any of them."  She's right.

So tonight we watch youtube videos on what to do with a hide.

Perhaps...

It turns out that getting a halter on jerky was easier than I expected.  My husband rigged one of the halters we have to fit him, called him over to the gate and just reached through to put it on him.  Okay, it wasn't quite that easy.  First jerky wanted to sniff it, then head butt it, but in the end my husband was able to just slip it on.   With a gate between them, the fear factor for me was low.

We were laughing that jerky was thinking, "oh, you have jewelry for me, we'll that's different!" 

The chickens have been enjoying their time on the pasture.  They've even figured out how to get to the water. 

The egg production has stayed high and we can no longer keep up.  We offered to friends and milk customers and are already selling five dozen a week. 

Over the holidays we took a year-end look at our finances and decided it might be wise to get a second milk cow.  The money we make from selling milk doesn't cover even half of our hay.  If we can rent pasture for the steers, we'll have room for another cow and the new income would help.

A decision like this will have a significant effect on the whole family so we talked about it.  Each of our concerns says a lot about us:

• the 10-year-old twins think it's a great idea and can't wait,
• the teenagers are concerned about any extra work,
• I worry about finding the new customers, and
• my husband is concerned that new cow might be mean to Christina.

When we started this adventure, it was just about feeding ourselves.  Now we've discovered what a joy it is to share the good food we grow with others.  Not everybody can have a milk cow and chickens, but we can.   Perhaps when God called us into this, God put a hole in our budget big enough to make us reach out to others.  Perhaps God has plans for the gifts of this land that extend beyond our family.

But another cow would bring added responsibility.  Are we ready?  I guess that's what's prayer is for.

Man-Cow Battle

We've been at this self-sufficiency thing for a couple years and we've had cows for most of that, but I still feel cow stupid. 

Jerky, Christina's calf from last year, is giving us problems.  We switched cows in the fields and now jerky is on the side where we bring in hay.  As the girls were delivering hay, he started head-butting and jumping around.  When he was little that was no big deal, but he's good-sized now.  It was scarey.  My husband was going to have none of it and they got into a man-cow battle.  Ropes were thrown, noses were kicked, men were knocked into the poop pile.  Finally, my husband conquered, but not before my daughters and I were put through fits, first distressed about my husband and then about jerky. 

That steer has roamed too long.  At the time it seemed fine, but now we realize the trouble we're in.  It's not safe for the girls to go into the pasture with jerky until we get him docile again, and that's going to take a while. 

We took halters off jerky and beefy several weeks ago (or has it been several months?) when we realized they had outgrown them.  The first step in getting jerky safe is to get a halter on him and let him have a few epic battles with the post.  For now, we'll keep him in the other pasture, out of the way. 

In the end, after all that battling, jerky and my husband did some subdued hugging and petting.  I think he'll be okay, but I also think I'll let my husband get the halter on him.