What's that smell?!

Today was the day our beef share was ready for pickup, so we headed out to Full Quiver Farm, anxious to be done with feedlot raised meat and get on with the good stuff!  I figured the kids would want to wander around and check out the animals, pet the goats, etc...WRONG!  My youngest decided he didn't like the smell of the farm and hung back, which is why only my oldest is in these pictures!  Now this kind of rubbed me the wrong way because, hey, I grew up in Minnesota and LOVE these smells, especially now that I live in suburban sprawl!  And to be fair, this farm had only a mild, pleasant scent of a small family farm...geez, one day I will have to drive by a feedlot or massive hog operation with the windows down so he can get a whiff of THAT!  It just shows me that I have a little work to do to make sure my kids know and appreciate all that goes into the food that arrives on their plates.  Come on...who can resist this face....!!!!

About the meat:  this is the good stuff!  Humanely raised, humanely slaughtered, pasture-fed, local abbatoir processed.  I don't put as much stock in the official "certification" as I do in seeing the farm for myself and talking to the farmer about their practices.  Certification is wonderful, but it is costly and thus prevents many excellent small farms that are otherwise qualified from obtaining it.  See the farm, talk to the farmer, taste the meat...pasture raised happy animals taste better than their grocery store feedlot counterparts! 

I thought I would show what a standard "share" or "variety box" that many farms use consists of, since I was nervous about having enough room to store it all, and had no idea what it contained until we picked it up!  Of course there are other cuts available for purchase separately, or you can go grand-scale and get the side of beef that some farms offer, but this "variety box" is becoming very popular with the urban/suburban population due to its manageable size, which is roughly 45-50 lbs.  

Here is the box on my dining table for size estimation.  This baby could fit in the back of your old college CRX! 
This is how much came in the box.  All vacuum packed & labled.  While probably a little much for your standard freezer (it would fit, but you would have no room for anything else!), this easily fit in my little deep freeze I purchased last year along with all my other stuff (my freezer is pictured above behind the dining table, as I have no room in my kitchen for it!)  It's a tight fit, but that's only because I am full of frozen veggies still from last years harvest and also a share of pork in there.  I think with a little creativity like plastic baskets or such I can get it to not just fit but be organized as well.  Freezer was under 200.00 and has already enabled me to not only preserve my garden produce for winter but also buy in bulk thus saving on my grocery bill.
The contents of the beef share:

1 lb Sirloin Steaks

4 T-Bone Steaks

4 Rib Steaks

2 large Chuck Roasts

1 Tip Roast

1 Bottom Round Roast

1 Shoulder Roast

2 lbs Short Ribs

3 lbs boneless Stew/Kebab chunks

5 lbs very meaty soup bones

16 lbs ground beef packaged in 1 lb segments

So there it is, if anyone was wondering what's involved in a Beef Share program at a small humane farm!  Farms usually offer the same type of share program in pork and lamb if they raise them.  And of course, we picked up eggs while we were there...nothing like fresh eggs!

To my sailor/farmer husband who is out to sea right now...sorry you missed it...we'll save you the soup bones, that is, if the Garden Dogs don't get to them first :)

Rain, Rain, Go Away...

I just realized I haven't posted in many days.  It's the weather's fault!  It has been raining and cold nonstop for 5 days and I didn't even venture outside until today.  I snapped a couple of photos and retreated back into the warm house!  I have a couple of bulbs drowning in the mud and count it...ONE pea sprouting!

     

So this weekend was a bust, and to top it off, both the kids and I were sick with a cold!  At least we picked a good time to be sick, and lounging in front of the TV and reading didn't leave me feeling like I was being lazy since it was pouring outside!  The good news is that all my seedlings are cooking right along under their lights, about 2 sets of leaves on them now. Of all the tomatoes, the Heirloom Black Krim is by far looking to be the fullest, fastest growing variety, so I highly recommend that one if you are looking to start from seed.  They were slow to germinate but made up for that very quickly, surpassing all the others.  The Black Krim seeds came from Baker Heirloom Seed Co. this year.  I highly recommend getting a copy of their catalog, it is eye candy for a gardener during the cold winter/spring months! 

I forgot an update about the pasture raised bacon we ate the other night from Full Quiver Farm....DELICIOUS!  Hands down the best we have ever had, and worth every penny!  That's all I've got for now...so I will leave you with some photos of the "Garden Dogs".  These are my gorgeous Aussie girls...

Sprocket (as in Spacely), 11 months                

   

Marley, age 6

To the Farm!

          

On a separate topic but still relating to our little "homestead" and our attempts to live more responsibly, we took a trip to the farm this past weekend!  I was lucky enough to be able to find a sustainable farm within an hour's drive from us to source humanely raised meat.  Being raised in Minnesota and actually living on a farm as a child, it is a subject close to my heart.  I believe that we should all find a way to clean up our habits when it comes to purchasing food for our families.  I know that financially it can be tough to practice what you preach in regards to food, but it's important to try on some level, even if it's just with making an attempt to buy locally to reduce transportation fuel consumption.  We try to first grow our own veggies, then supplement that with local items in season at the farmers market, and now have found a sustainable, humane source for beef, pork, chicken & eggs.  By the way, these products will become more widely available and affordable if we as consumers demand them, so ask your local grocer to carry them!

 Anyway, on Saturday my husband and I took the kids out to Full Quiver Farm in Suffolk, VA to pick up our first meat order.  The selection varies according to time of year, but we were able to pick up some great pork roasts, bacon, and fresh eggs while we were there, and put our deposit down on a share of beef when it becomes ready later in the spring.  They use a local abbatoir for their pork and beef and slaughter their own chicken and turkey, all of which have led "happy lives" on pasture instead of spending their lives in a feedlot.  The farm owners were friendly, helpful, and proud of what they do there and the kids had a great lesson in where their food comes from.  The boys also had a good time petting the goats and seeing the baby chicks that will be their future dinner! 

 I will admit it was a little difficult explaining to them the process about where meat actually comes from, but we read a few books about it, and I can now show them pictures of feedlot animals and pastured animals and they can pick out the differences and also tell you why one is a better choice than the other.  There is no way this Minnesota girl would ever go vegan, so my method is to be a responsible carnivore and support local, sustainable agriculture.  If you are interested in a great book about the subject, check out author Catherine Friend's book "The Compassionate Carnivore" , it is a great source of info.  For fun, check out her book "Hit by a Farm", a great read about moving from the city to start a new life on a farm.  Yes, I may be biased since she lives about 40 minutes down the road from my parents' farm in Minnesota, but her books are easy to love, witty, humorous, and truthful, and she presents information in a very non-judgemental manner.  On that note, she also has penned some children's books as well, one of which was the first book my son read aloud to me all by himself!  I am now headed into the kitchen to make eggs and bacon using our newly acquired farm-fresh ingredients - I will let you know how they are!