Bull calves and chickens

It snowed this morning, flurries until around 1:30pm today. Now the sun is out and the wind is stiff and it is COLD outside. Hubby and I worked together to save time and finished up on the bull calf. I'll bet it took a good 20 minutes to get the feeling back in my fingers. Now it's soaking in a little salt water, waiting for me to get around to doing the clean up on it before I grind it up. The calf was still young enough to count as veal so it should be tasty eating.

I'm pleased to say I got 7 eggs today! Now I can make something sweet to go with supper tonite!

Still no word from the coalmine, I'm a little depressed over that. I did make a couple contacts today in hopes of finding something else......

dp, and katidids, your packages are on the way!

Total Chaos-graphic photo

Well, this whole day ended up something I hadn't planned on. Before I even had my first cup of coffee it was already getting to be a dandy day.
One of the cows we've been keeping an eye on found it's way into the pond and had gotten stuck in the mud sometime overnight. It took half the day to get him pulled out but we finally got him. The poor little feller just wasn't doing so good. We gave him a few more hours with no signs of improvement and put him down. So, now we have cow on the menu. So much for getting Copper the sheep butchered this weekend!

So, by the time we got him put down, loaded up and home, it's almost dark. Then, get him jockeyed around and hung up and I sent my son in the house to retrieve my camera. He got tangled up in our tomcat, fell down and broke the camera wide open. I sent him back in to mess with it, thinking it was pretty much destroyed and by the time we got the little feller gutted, in the dark by the way, here he comes with a working camera. Now the cow is hanging to cool overnight and we'll work more on him tomorrow.

What a day! I still managed to get all cleaned up and cook some fried chicken, stuffing with mashed potatoes, gravy and corn for supper. Thankfully I already had some bread. whew, I need a nap!

the hidden agenda thing

Why is it some people think they only way to spread their own agenda or messages is by posting comments that are intentionally deceptive? Today I got a comment on the Free Meat post by an anonymous commenter with a link to a website saying it was a link to free meat. Thank you anonymous from Madison, Wisconsin but I check links people post in comments. The page was a PETA anti-meat site.

I am a meat eater! I will continue to be a meat eater too! There's an old joke that goes.... Native American translation for vegetarian is "bad hunter". Now, I'm not knocking folks that choose to be vegetarians but I'm not, nor will I ever choose to only eat veges. I like chicken, pork, beef, DEER, sheep, bison, elk and a few various wierd meats as well. I am a hunter and I like it. While I do not condone the inhumane treatment animals may endure either on the way to the slaughterhouse or during their stay there, I will not stop eating meat. What I have chosen to do about it is raise my own critters for consumption.

I treat my critters well and they probably eat better than I do. Every critter I have even butchered had a name, was loved, was well tended and, was butchered in the most humane way I possibly could. I am also content in the knowledge that I am consuming chemical, steroid and antibiotic free meats.

So, don't let the opinios of others dissuade you from raising your own critters for the dinner table or going out and killing yourself a deer. There's nothing wrong with eating meat, I do it every day and I'm still alive........

The Big Weenie

Hahahahahaha, I bet you thought this was a perverted post!

I finally got around to finishing the butcher job on the hog in the freezer. Well, one half of it anyway. Home grown pork turned into home made breakfast sausage! This has been a very pleasant Valentines Day, hubby and my son both got in on this project. We've spent the afternoon laughing and messing around while we're getting the job done. That's what being a self sustained farm is all about!



Stay safe and keep prepping!

What's for dinner?

I was on the list, last on the list as a matter of fact, to get a couple lambs out of a trailer load. The 4-H kids had first dibs and I ended up with "Copper", a just about ready to butcher sheep. Not one to look a "gift sheep" in the mouth, I was thrilled to have him even if he wasn't what I had in mind. Now, I am a big advocate of the self sustained living ideal, I live it and so I preach it. I've never butchered a sheep before tho, it should be an interesting exercise. I'm going to let "Copper" calm down for a bit, get gentled a bit so when I do get set to butcher him, I won't have a freaked out carcass full of endorphins that make the meat rank.

Off to the barn........