Haulin' Beef

My parents still live on the same farm that my sisters and I grew up on. It was a slice of heaven then and it is a slice of heaven now. I consider myself one of the luckiest girls on the planet to have been brought up on a farm. There is something about having such a close connection with one's food that drives a deeper understanding of new life and death at an early age. It brings a natural respect for life that seems to be absent in much of our culture today. I LOVED growing up there and I LOVE each time we return for a visit.
My dad (at 77) still raises cattle, and each year he sets aside a few cows to be all grass fed with absolutely no chemicals whatsoever, for our families. He does it all. Raises them, feeds them, and hauls them to the butcher. Then we each get to decide how we would like the beef cut and then we go and pick it up from the butcher! Now, how is that for amazingly generous parents?( Forget about it. They're mine. )
Today was the day we picked up our meat from the butcher! Oh Happy day!
Savannah, Jackson and I drove the 3 hours to the butcher. This place is, of course, smack dab in the middle of a farm, so there was all sorts of activity going on as we arrived. We went inside and the clerk was super nice and handed me my cut sheet with all of the butcher mumbo jumbo on it.  435 pounds! WOW!
The kids and I drove around to the back of the farm buildings that contain this processing facility, and waited. After a short time, a gal came out pushing our racks of beef, cut, frozen, wrapped and labeled.

From there it was up to me and the kids.

Did I mention that the high was SUPPOSED to be 30 today? Yeah. It never got there. And there was wind. BIG wind.
Did I mention that the meat was frozen? Yeah. It was frozen.

And by the time we were done hauling the beef from the racks into their perspective coolers that we had prepared, we were frozen too. But we made record time. The gal who pushed the racks out was covered from head to toe to protect herself from the cold. SO much so, that it took me awhile to determine if it WAS a girl. But hey, I get it. And she stood there staring at us while we worked. I prefer to think that she was in awe by the speed at which we moved that beef. I'm sure that was it. Before we left, she made the remark that it was actually warmer inside than it was outside today. She was referring to inside the freezer.

So, home we went. Haulin' the beef. When I got home, the kids hauled it all inside to the basement where we have an extra freezer in a closet- that -is- not -filled- with- junk. I used my overabundance of storage containers (note that they are shoe-size....another story for a different day), to organize the beef inside the freezer. Ground beef, filets, roasts, N.Y.Strips, etc, etc.  And here is the finished product:

Let me tell you, you couldn't fit a piece of paper into that freezer right now if you had to.  But I love looking at it. :-)

A few weeks ago, when my family was all together, we actually got to try this years steaks. Glenway grilled them for us and they were FABULOUS. So delicious, so tender. We are so spoiled now!
While we were eating, I noticed a particular gleam of delight in my mothers eye as she was savoring her steak. At first I thought, "Awww....thats nice. Look at mom. So delighted by the bounty from the farm, once again." And then I remembered something. That gleam in her eye was not necessarily brought on only from the delight of the succulent provisions that they were providing for us, once again. That gleam had the slight spark of satisfactory revenge. You see, these particular cows had broken into my moms garden. My parents' garden is always amazing. They produce enough food for a small army, and they love it. No, I mean they LOVE.IT.
These cows broke into the garden, and what they didn't eat, they trampled into the mud, leaving it completely devastated. My mother rarely EVER gets angry and she is Snow White-like, in that she is friend to ALL animals large and small. But when she came up from the barn that day, she trembled. She marched straight into the office, went into the file cabinet, pulled out the file for the butcher and handed it to my dad. Yeah....they were pretty much history after that. Cows have never been known for their intelligence. And mom thought that this steak was even better than last years.
Cheers!
Melissa