Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Old buddy stops for a visit

Miss our old neighbors at the old house, have had lots of them down for cookouts, but today we got an unexpected visitor, missed that critter!
 this somebody used to ride his gator up our driveway, around the garage into the back yard, down to the veggie garden, pick a few things, toss in his "trunk" and go down by the creek and up and out onto the road again, a big circle around the house, then he would drive past the house to go back home just a giggling cuz he just robbed the garden
good times!!
and Ms Backfire says hello to you all, she's gotten sooo big and you just have to love those green eyes!

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Beef Butchering & Processing ~ Farm to Freezer

Going to talk a little about beef butchering and processing today, we live next to farmer John who raises beef and chickens, it's a total blast, we moved here over 4 years ago and couldn't have asked for better neighbors! So we buy our beef from the neighbor, butcher and process ourselves, we have big gatherings when we do this, it goes faster and is so much fun during the process, doesn't seem like work at all!

So meet the neighbor John, ornery ole critter!!
I won't get too gory & yucky on here, but it IS butchering and it is graphic so close your eyes if you don't like this kind of stuff.
yep, its dirty work, but it is so nice knowing what goes into your freezer, who raised it, and what went into the meat we will server our family!
You do see it's the guys out there right? us gals are inside waiting patiently for our part, after they do the cutting, we do the wrapping :) and not to mention it's warmer inside too!
Let the fun begin, now to get the cuts everyone wants
How thick you want your steaks?
Let's trim them up boys!
Ok, so I meant the beef, not the other members of the family!!
Nice trim job :)
and of course we eat some too, cast iron skillets loaded with chunks of beef cooked over the wood stove, snack while we work!

All that is left is grinding the burger and getting it all wrapped, that was fun, a group of good people filling the freezer and having fun while doing it, wish you were here . . .