Goodness, but hasn't time gotten away from me.

I had Friday and Saturday off and ran about both days quite a bit. I was feeling a bit poorly last night, I thought I might be coming down with something but there was no sign of anything this morning.

Friday, after My Darlings buddy left I did some housework waiting for Baby Boy to wake up. Then we went out shopping (thrift stores). I rarely buy a lot but I find that if you want to get the good finds you must go out regularly. Then in the evening we had a little Stir Fry, took another walk, and after Baby Boy went to bed we watched a movie. All in all a nice day off. My Darling had to work, unfortunately but we had the evening and that was good.

Saturday we went north and picked up our half a cow. I have never bought a half a cow before. Technically, we paid $1.63/lb but that's what's called "hanging weight". That means they weigh it after they take off most of the unusable stuff but before they cut it more than in half. Our half a cow weighed 330 lbs. We got 65% yield and 213 lbs of meat (half of it ground). This still works out to ~ $3/lb. Perhaps a trifle high for ground beef but fantastic for rib eye, t-bone, sirloin, etc. For those of you lucky enough to live in CA, yes, beef is WAY more expensive here (no one was more shocked than I when I first arrived here in MI). After returning home we put Baby Boy down for a nap and set about loading out freezer with said half a cow. My hands ached from the cold long before the meat was tucked away. Not only did we have 100 lbs of ground beef to load and 100+ other assorted cuts we still have a nice bit of venison and a variety of pork, chicken and turkey to store as well. Luckily I inherited my Dads packing gene (passed down to him from my Grandfather, a man of many talents not the least of which was packing a car for a trip). Once the meat was packed away we removed a nice sirloin (well actually one of the sirloin packages was open so we decided to eat it right away) and cooked it out on the grill, plain with just the barest of flavored tenderizer. OMG!! I can't wait to taste the better cuts. The sirloin simply melted in you mouth and what a nice flavor. Like produce, locally grown and fresh meat is so much better than the mass produced stuff. I need to get some fresh chickens now. Maybe I should get a coup and raise my own (fresh eggs too).

Today I worked. Sunday everybody works. It wasn't great but it wasn't bad, it was just work. I did ok and was home in time to enjoy some time with the family (actually I need to wrap this up because I am kinda cutting into their time here).

Maybe tonight we take another walk (the sun has warmed it up a bit). Spring is almost here (and soon so will Anna).

I wish you Peace

~alison~

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