Where's the Beef??

We finally jumped in and did it. We purchased 1/4 share of cow. The best price we could find was a place in South Carolina. The plan was we would travel an hour away and meet them at a market and pick it up there. However, the processor labeled it wrong and as such we had to travel to a farm two hours away to pick up the beef. It just so happens that the farm, Sharon Rose Farm, had "Family Day on the Farm." So, after rushing to a birthday party and then rushing to leave, we hit the road to travel. We would have made it for more festivities, but we took a wrong turn (if only we had a GPS, huh Grandmere) and got there just a little late. However, the owners of the farm were extremely nice and gave us a tour and gave our hot tired children water. The kids got to run around and, hopefully, learned a little about farming (school day).

The farmer uses these old Farmall tractors and he had two of them out. Liam and Josiah were enthralled. They loved climbing on them. Oh, that's a prince or a cowboy on Liam's cheek. I didn't hear the conversation between him and the artist but it looked like a doozy.

She's a tiger...look out!!

The funnest thing was meeting the baby chicks. Now, folks, these aren't laying hens. That's right! I just held and petted someone's supper. He was so cute and fluffy though. I love baby chicks. I remember my grandmother hatching and incubating them (mostly laying hens for them) when I was growing up...ahhh, nostalgia. None of the kids would pick them up.

Don't you just love the way my face "glistens!" It felt like 100 degrees in there as they were "incubating" the chicks.

Freshly weaned baby pigs. Here's your bacon and sausage.

They also have a milk cow. In South Carolina it is legal to sell raw milk, but you have to be liscensed (and raw milk dairies, so I've heard, are much much cleaner than regular dairies...I'm just saying). This is their milking trough/area. Liam thought he'd just have a little seat here.

Uncle B raises free range chickens (for food) and I thought he would get a kick outof seeing all their many cages.

I think Josiah was trying to whisper escape plans...not quite sure.

Someone's steak, burger, and other assorted meats (Sorry if your vegetarian...I'm not, obviously). Liam asked me why the cow had to die and I borrowed an answer I read from Uncle B and Aunt B, "That it had done what God had created it to do" He was very happy with that.

We were too, as we had some sirloin tip roast kabobs marinated and grilled today! Yum yum.

This is only the bottom half of our 20 cubit foot freezer. It barely took up two shelves! So, see not much room needed for the food.

We purchased the meat from Native Meats. We did not buy a box but emailed them personally about purchasing the 1/4 share cow. We got 70 pounds of meat out of 1/4 share.