From start to finish

One of the advantages of running a cattle ranch is knowing exactly where your beef has been from start to finish. We know what we fed them, we know how we treated them, and we know how they ended up on our plate.

This weekend the family got together to cut up a heifer that we had killed 3 weeks earlier. The meat had aged for three weeks while hanging in the cooler over by my place. We used to do this everytime we had a heifer or steer ready (or fat enough) to butcher. We allow the animal to gain weight until we think it is a optimal weight to provide good quality meat for the family. This time, because of the drought, the heifer was finished out at a feedlot my cousin helps run. The majority of the time we now have a locker plant process the beef but when my dad started calling locker plants in the area, they were all booked until basically after Christmas.

So, we rounded up our help, and had a workday on Saturday. I'll show you a little of the process I have come to appreciate so much. It's a bit more fun if you have more help, but it was a good time.

First thing we do is take the quarters of beef out of the cooler and we cut them up using the big saw. Some cuts of meat are ready right after we have cut them with the saw. Others need just a bit more work to get them to the right cut and size of meat.

We trim some fat off, but not all of it. A lot depends on which cut of meat it is. Some cuts you want to leave a bit more fat because of how you cook them. Usually you don't want to take all of the fat off because that is where a large part of the flavor comes from as you cook it.

Our dogs and cats appreciate it when we cut up meat. The scraps become food for them for quite a while. We try not to waste anything. One year we actually packaged up a lot of the scraps so we could freeze them and feed them to the dogs and cats later.

Some of the pieces of meat that might not be as tender or have a specific use are turned into chunks of meat for hamburger. Once we have cut the meat up into relatively small chunks, we feed them through the hamburger grinder. I missed this first part of the process so I didn't get pictures. As a kid, one of the jobs we were entrusted with was to run the hamburger grinder. We would push the chunks down in the grinder and watch as the hamburger came out in long strands and landed in the clean 5 gallon buckets. Then we would put those buckets back in the cooler until we had a chance to package it as bulk hamburger and also make it into patties.

Now we have pretty cool little attachments for the grinder so we can actually feed the burger straight into one lb. bags. This next contraption is the newest. This is how we now make our patties...and it is WAY faster.

It attaches right onto the front of the grinder. As someone slowly feeds the meat into it, another person mans the patty maker.

As it fills up, the person needs to be ready with a piece of wax paper and once it fills up they slide it over to start filling the next section. This empties the full patty onto the waiting wax paper.

This one is falling apart a little bit, but THAT is what I call one heck of a hamburger patty. 

I quickly learned this time that I am not very good at wrapping the meat. I was bogged down from the beginning and just don't have the technique down...and of course I was complaining about it. My mom showed up, after spending most of the morning preparing food for us, and very quietly sat down and DID WORK. This woman is highly impressive. It didn't matter what shape of steak she was given, she managed to elegantly wrap the packages. I, on the other hand, fought with the paper, fought with the tape dispenser, fought with...well, pretty much anything that I was supposed to be working with. She bailed me out before lunch and then after serving us lunch, cleaning up all of the leftovers and dishes, she came back out to help me out again. THIS WOMAN IS AMAZING!

(Sorry some of these pictures are weirdly placed. Sometimes I don't know why the blog format does what it does.)

After the meat was packaged, it moved on to our youngest member of the work force. He did a great job labeling our packages of meat prior to them being placed in the freezer....but sometimes, he had a bit too much free time on his hands ;-)

We have had a tape machine for probably 40 years or more and it simply was not working. Despite the efforts of our young helper, we never really got it to work again. So we used a damp sponge to get the paper tape wet. Then it was used to hold the packages shut.

After a long day, there is just nothing quite like looking in the freezer and seeing a rib-eye steak that is bigger than your hand (yes, that is my hand, and that package is a rib-eye.) Despite a long day, knowing we completed the process all on our own brings a big sense of satisfaction...and a lot of tasty beef ;-)

Blessedly Full Sunday

Ever since I was little, our family has been adamant about setting aside Sundays as a day of rest. It goes hand-in-hand with our beliefs. I'm not saying that we don't work at all on Sundays, but for instance, during the height of wheat harvest we are one of the families that don't harvest. We have always devoted our Sunday mornings to God. He has greatly blessed our family, and we try to devote our lives to Him by going to church on Sunday morning, among other things.

So, we didn't work today during church, but it was a very productive afternoon...and included a little bit of fun along the way.

This morning my boyfriend got a deer bow hunting. So after church and eating lunch, our first order of business was to harvest the meat off of it. I like that I say "we." I really just watched and held the ziploc bags ;-)

 The first order of business was to use a tractor to hang the deer up so it was easier to handle. Then it needed to be skinned. After it was skinned we rinsed it off as well as we could.

The final result was several bags of meat in the freezer to be used later for some wonderfully, scrumptious deer jerky!

After discarding of the bones and remaining carcass, it was time to dial in a new rifle. We both hit the target...but let's just say that his shots were MUCH closer to the bulls-eye than mine. Then it was getting dark but we still needed to change the oil in my Jeep. It adds some challenges to a simple oil change when it is starting to get dark outside.

Apparently my Walmart socket just can't match the strength of my boyfriend ;-) That's ok. It served its purpose for many years.

By the end of daylight, we had accomplished a lot. We finished a fulfilling Sunday with a little bit of NFL football. Hope you all had a "restful" Sunday as well and at least set aside a bit of time to be thankful to the Lord above for all He has blessed you with.

Sweet.....Potatoes

I've talked and talked...and talked and talked...and then talked some more about our drought. My garden faired better than I thought it might. But one of the things that faired the best was a plant I don't even like ;-) The rest of my family LOVES sweet potatoes, but I have never appreciated their taste.

Today was the day to finally harvest the crop.

I had cut the top off of the potato plants before our first freeze, so dad had to hunt a little bit to find each hill of potatoes. One of the first hills (or one plant) he dug up had 8.5 lbs of potatoes on it!

 

You can see that some of the potatoes were quite healthy! Somehow we did manage to over-water them during a drought and the majority of them were split, but they will still be ok to eat. It just means they don't look as pretty.

This is my hand. I was trying to use it as an indicator of how big the potatoes got...it doesn't work quite as well when you can't even see my hand! However, I guess the fact that it covers my entire hand except my fingertips is still a pretty good indicator.

This is dad's hand. I think one potato like this will probably feed a couple of people for one meal.

After the potatoes were all dug up, we placed them on a screen in the shed in my backyard. We wanted the mud on them to dry up so we can clean them off easier. We elevated the screen so mice can't crawl onto it and have a little feast.

After the potatoes dry off and we have cleaned them, we will move them into a more stable climate (probably in my basement) so they will keep longer.

Yep, the one that doesn't even like them gets to keep them in her house ;-) That's ok. I enjoy seeing the joy on the faces of my family members and also friends when I get to deliver some to them. That's part of the joy of a garden. I love seeing the sweat and labor throughout such a hot summer pay off with sharing the crop with loved ones. I'll plant sweet potatoes every year just to get that type of a reward ;-)

Fall Activities

Welcome to Fall in western Kansas. We've been through a tough drought, but God is still blessing us with unexpected surprises. For instance, the trees up above have been absolutely gorgeous! We didn't think this would happen at all and it has been so amazing getting to enjoy the fabulous Fall colors.

Along with those gorgeous colors, we have gotten some wonderful rain. I didn't get any pictures of the rain, but I did notice something I've never noticed before. It was a bit depressing, but I still thought it was interesting. Throughout this drought, I have been comforted by knowing that we still had grass covering most areas. Well, when we finally got some good, hard rain, it opened my eyes to what was actually going on. In the above picture it might be hard to tell. But it is out in our pasture and the rain actually washed the grass into "waves." This means the grass didn't actually have a root system. The grass in these areas was only on the surface and it took a good rain  to make me understand how harshly areas of our pastures had been affected.

My sister and her children were visiting this past weekend from Minnesota. My mom thought it would be a great time to celebrate with all of the younger cousins from both sides of our family. I planted small decorative pumpkins last Spring and it was so much fun to see them bringing joy to the little ones this weekend. My mom, ever the art teacher, had everything all set up and the kids had a fun-filled morning decorating their pumpkins and just enjoying each other.

While they were having fun with the pumpkins, dad and I were moving our drills (used to plant our wheat crop for next year) home. It gave me an opportunity to snap some more pictures. The intent was to get photos of the wonderful fall colors. However, God once again blew my mind. I didn't realize how AMAZING the sky was until I started taking pictures.These photos don't do justice to the trees and their colors, but the sky is definitely worth taking a look at.

Here are the finished pumpkin products. They were just getting ready to take this photo when I returned. We have an abundance of things going on here. Some of them were blinded from facing into the sun, some were picking stickers out of their clothing because they had been running through areas they probably shouldn't have been in, others were talking, some were being goofy while younger ones were mimicking them being goofy...and some just didn't know what in the word was going on. I think that pretty much sums up our family ;-)

And somehow, one of the only ones that didn't paint still ended up with paint on them ;-)

I think everyone was pretty proud of how the day turned out and I think (after she recovers from this one) my mom should do this every year ;-) Enjoy the season and all of the beauty God has created around you!

What free time?

Several weeks ago we had parent teacher conferences and I didn't have to go to school until noon. So, my dad and I naturally felt compelled to make sure we had my morning filled. The mission was simple enough...to move cattle home from a CRP field about 10 miles from our house.

Of course, since we had such a limited amount of time things went wrong immediately. The first thing that happened was a VERY dead semi. We charged it for quite a while, but it didn't work. Since we didn't have the semi, it meant it would take several trips with a pickup and gooseneck trailer to move cattle home rather than one trip in the semi.

We took the Mule along filled with oat and feed bales to tempt the cattle into the corral we were going to set up.

Once there, we set the panels up into a temporary corral to gather the cattle before loading them into the trailer.

The cattle enjoyed the bales and went to work quickly eating them. We had to move the cattle home because we were only allowed to have them graze the CRP for a certain period of time.

This is where the pictures end. We got two loads of cattle loaded up before I had to head home. My dad and uncle remained behind to finish the job.

Although it was short and rushed, the time outside was a welcome change of pace from my teaching job.

We Are Hungry

Since the first day of school, conversation with adults and students has centered on the new lunch policy that basically limits the amount of food for EVERY kid. They are limited to the number of calories that are needed for obese children to lose weight.

Through looking at calorie intake needs for ACTIVE students, I have basically concluded the same thing as several sites I looked at. The drastic cut in calories can actually cause our students to have problems with growth and overall health.

So, since we have very few kids that are overweight (and a majority of students that participate in after school sports), this logic seems a bit on the flawed side. Through many conversations this idea was born. This is what I've been up to lately. Check it out and see what you think. Hope you enjoy!

Click Here: We Are Hungry

God's healing rains

On a day with a blustery, depressing beginning it was amazing to see how emotions and nature were transformed once again by God's grace.

It all began with a windy, overcast and depressing drive into town where I didn't know if I had ever seen dust billowing out from behind the vehicle from our dry dirt roads like it did this morning.

Once at school, there was a solemn attitude as many of our junior high kids were dressed up to go to a funeral for a friend of theirs in the neighboring town who had been killed in a car wreck just Saturday.
Seeing those kids and knowing they were preparing to deal with a heartbreaking part of life was a bitter reminder of how cruel this earth can be at times...and the weather seemed to fit perfectly.

After they returned from the funeral, the sprinkles started. Just one here and there, but there was hope. Then the rain began...and ended...and began...and continued for over 2 hours

It wasn't a downpour, but it was one of those refreshing rains. As I arrived to help serve the meal at youth group, I saw those same kids, that dealt with one of the hardest moments in life, running around playing football in the rain. Everyone in town was loving the moisture and just enjoying the freshness it seemed to bring.
I traveled home and thanked God for the moisture and the stark change in scenery from the drive this morning. There were still reminders of the serious drought we are in. But I take pride in the character of people in western Kansas.

 We might look a bit like this corn field. We might be worse for wear at times, but we still hang on and try to tough it out. This corn won't be harvested, but it did as much as it could. This rain may not have amounted to much more than 20 hundredths, but it served its purpose. It gave us a fresh outlook and washed away some of the sadness to remind us that God is good and we can make it to another day!

Like Superman...it's all about the clothes

When I head back to school there is a huge struggle with my true identity and my alter ego. There's the farmgirl for life part of me that loves nothing more than the freedom of living life on the farm. But there is the teacher side of me that loves to invest in the lives of my students...and it also helps to pay the bills ;-)

This week, I'm getting to use both of them to their fullest extent.

Early morning, I'm Farmgirl. Dirty jeans and all.

As soon as chores are done, I have to transform to become Miss K.

Even though I've been a farmgirl all my life, I've never been a morning person. Just ask my cousin. She is pretty much the only person I'll get up for at anywhere between 4:30 or 5 in the morning to go work out with. Seriously, she's the only one...and I'm never all that thrilled about it. But as she says, "It's all in my head."

However, on mornings like this week, God makes it SOOOO worth it to walk out my back door to do chores. Here's the view as I walk out to God declaring, "Good morning!"

Here's to hoping that you have been able to enjoy God's beautiful day, no matter what identity you are using at the moment ;-)

Decisions, decisions

Today was an important step for me in terms of growing up.

After helping dad feed the calves this morning, he told me to go inside and get a piece of paper to write down numbers. I have 11 heifers and I will only keep five of those to grow my herd. The others will be sold. Even though I'm in my 30s, this is the first time I've actually been the one that makes the decision (ok, my boyfriend also helped me today). This is also the largest my herd has ever been, so there was more to choose from.

See the tiny one hiding between the other ones? That's not one I am going to keep. 

Number 208 is more what I'm looking for. Pretty good looking heifer.

This is my highly official paper I was writing on.

Hmmm....can you guess which ones will get kept out of this picture?

In all my years of competing at livestock judging contests (and being a complete and nervous wreck when preparing for the "reasons" part of it), I didn't really ever think it would do me a ton of good. It has helped me more than I ever thought. It gave me a good idea of what a good calf looks like and what characteristics I would like to have in my cattle herd.

Today it wasn't too in-depth. Basically, I was looking for the healthiest heifer calves. This has been a rough year because of the drought so we have weaned the calves almost two months early. That means they are no longer being fed by their moms, so they have to be able to maintain their nutrition on their own from whatever we are feeding them. In some cases it was an obvious choice that I didn't want to keep one of the calves because they were so scrawny. Other times it was basically a matter of opinion, but I think I'm pretty content with my choices.

So, if my herd doesn't do well in the next few years, it is ENTIRELY my fault....feels good to be a grown-up ;-)