1/4 Cow

Today the boys & I drove up through the rain and fog, through Christiansburg to Floyd, to pick up our beef for the year ~ a 1/4 of a pasture-raised cow.


~through the rain and fog~

Bringing it home and getting it put up is another, not so romantic story.


~the tomatoes that had to be removed to make room for the beef; they're now being cooked down into ketchup~


~the first shelf full of beef~


~Justin said (and I agree) that this photo doesn't begin to show the true size of this sirloin steak - these babies are HUGE!!!~

The weight of the cow is the hanging weight, and our 1/4 cow this year was 168lbs!! That's 40lbs bigger than our cow last year. A fun part of ordering meat in bulk ahead of time, you never know how big or small it's gonna be. When I picked it up the meat was already frozen. That meant I got to haul coolers full of frozen meat inside, while it was raining too! Then I got to put it all in the freezer, with nosy dogs trying to wedge themselves onto my lap. My hands get REALLY, REALLY cold if I don't wear gloves (a hint here: some cheapy fleece gloves from the Dollar Store really kick serious butt for tasks like this). In the above photo I'm not wearing gloves to better try and show the size of the steak.


~freezer full!~

We ended up having to use a second shelf to hold all the beef. We'll be getting 1/2 a hog this Fall, and this year's pick-up date is October 29th. That upper shelf of beef is normally our "pork shelf" and normally the pork takes up the entire shelf, if not a little more. Obviously, I'm going to need to be canning a LOT of tomatoes in the next two weeks! We also got some cow bones for the dogs today. Whiskey and Jomo each got tossed a couple, which they went crazy over. The rest went into a couple baggies and on that very bottom shelf of tomatoes. It doesn't look like it, but getting that freezer shut was quite an impressive feat, every time you touch anything you risk an avalanche. Hoorah for meat, for not needing to worry, for having to complain about too much food rather than starving due to going without. Once again, we are blessed.