A glut of meat

As I’ve said, there were a few upsides to the pandemic (for us, anyway). Avoiding restaurants, for one thing, meant we made a dent in our overloaded pantry and freezers. So there was space… fortunately.

As Mik Dragonrider observed, cattle are born knowing all profanity, and gladly teach it to anyone around them. Like people, adolescent cattle like to test boundaries. In their case, the boundaries are usually physical (i.e. fences). Younger calves can (and often do) slip between the barbed wire strands—the grass is always greener on the other side, after all. Larger calves, and full-grown cows with a taste for adventure, have to probe for loose (or broken) wires. The SOBs are always finding—or making—holes in the fences.

But one particular bull calf took a different approach. Instead of finding loose spots, he just jumped over the fence. Whenever he pleased.

Devolved T-rex

A digression: the parents of the Evil Twins have a friend who works in a chicken processing plant (a magical place where evil chickens become good chickens). Over the weekend, they brought us a box of whole (processed) chicken—seven in total, around 30 pounds of bone-in poultry. Fortunately, we have a vacuum sealer, and bagged the bounty. Three of them went to Daughter Dearest. I offered one to the preacher, and he said “Bring two, I'll smoke them and give you one back.” Works for me!

Back to the calf. We have a holding pen, where cows going to market get diverted, and somehow the wife got Jumpy in there. With grain and alfalfa pellets, he decided he preferred it to jumping out to the pasture. The family who re-roofed the manor, and generally hangs out with us, went in halfies with us on the calf. It helped that they have a trailer and a 4x4 pickup (it has been seriously soupy in the pasture, with all the rain this winter). The wife wielded a stick, and Jumpy found himself in a trailer. He tried to jump out a couple of times, but only banged his head against the lattice over the trailer.

While we were waiting for the processors to do their thing with Jumpy, the other family gave us a few packs of venison. Most of it is ground, but there are some tenderloin “medallions” in there. I refer to the latter as “douche steak,” because the wife uses a vinegar/water marinade (then rolled in bread crumbs and pan-fried… it’s really good stuff).

We have steak!

Yesterday, while Charlie was at his therapy session, the processor let the wife know Jumpy was ready to come home. We had anticipated this, and I chucked all of our coolers into the back of Moby Yo (the great white minivan) before she left. Of course, the processor had already boxed up the packages, so the coolers weren’t necessary, but better to have and not need than to need and not have, right?

We ended up with two boxes. One was all the really good stuff: brisket, ribeye, strip, filet, flank steak, one roast, and a few other cuts. The second box was ground chuck, still good stuff, partitioned into one-pound packs (perfect for us).

So, Jumpy’s last jump landed himself in our freezer. I did half-and-half venison and ground chuck yesterday evening for tacos, and the wife kept raving about how good it was (she was really hungry, but still). There are leftovers for my lunch, which is even better.

With all the beef and chicken in the freezer, I expect the wife will be craving pork before too long…