Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Thank You for My Cow

I mentioned earlier that we bought a freezer; hence the bad start to my weekend. It looks like this…


Any-hoo, we didn’t just up and decide to buy a freezer that you can store 3 dead bodies in. Nope, we did it because we bought a cow. OK, well, half a cow.

When my dad was in the hospital, my aunt and uncle came to visit while they were in town. I think they were kind of scared, because at that point he was pretty heavily drugged up and still had the turban on his head. Since he wasn’t really in the mood for talking, we sat around and bullshitted. We’re really good at that.

I have lots of aunts and uncles, and this particular pair are farmers. Like, real life farmers. They farm about 25,000 acres or something like that, and they have cows. (They used to have hogs too, but the market turned unfavorably and they stopped, which just blows my mind. That farm with no pigs???)

Aren’t they cute???? See how my aunt looks like she is laughing? She always smiles, and laughs and they are always both in a good mood. And even if they aren’t, they fake it pretty well. Must be all the fresh air they get.

So another aunt was also at the hospital, and my mom was on edge because we had six people in the Neuro ICU room and the limit is supposed to be two! (AHH!! We’re going to get kicked out!!!) And they all got talking about buying a cow or a half or a quarter, and my sister and I decided that we also needed a cow. So I bought a half a cow. And then we waited for a while.

The cows weren’t quite ready yet, so a couple of months went by, and I kept talking about how I bought a cow. And then the time came!! The slaughterhouse is just down the road, and I have visions in my head of a herd of cows wandering down this country road to their deaths. I mean, sad, but I’m OK with it, because I really like beef, and they had a good life. You know, until it was over.

My aunt promised me the best half of the best cow, but who knows if she told everyone that. Anyway, we found out that the meat was hanging, and then eventually I had to call and put in my order for how I wanted it cut. So I did, and a few days later, we got the call that all was ready. This is where it got dicey.

We thought that maybe my dad would go visit his brother and bring my meat back. And then he didn’t have enough coolers, because did you know that half a cow is 300lbs of meat??? So Workaholic decided to make a day trip of it. And whenever anyone asks him about it, he says this.

“It went fine, I was in the car for 8 hours, I was there for 10 minutes.”

Sigh…yes, I did buy a cow 4 hours away. Easier if I wasn’t 8 months pregnant in the middle of summer and worked full-time. So this blog is a shout-out to my hubby, a big THANK YOU for driving 8 hours to get my cow. Because it really isn’t like it makes much of a difference in his life, he doesn’t do the grocery shopping…he could care less if I have to stress about whether or not we have meat for dinner. But he loves me, and that is why he did it.

PS He doesn’t read my blog, so this is really me just bragging to the universe about how awesome he is. I have to do that every once in a while.

PPS Yes, we did buy a freezer to store the cow that I bought to save money. Yes, I realize that defeats the purpose. BUT, the meat is better than what you get in the store. At least that is what I am telling myself.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Next time... I have a friend with a family farm in Morocco. I believe the slaughterhouse is in Roselawn. Much closer...same animal.