Under 2.00 a Pound!

The steers, Salt (shown right) and Pepper(left) are both nestled snugly in my freezer, and hubby's taxidermy freezer, and my mom's freezer, and the neighbors freezer. Holy S%^&*(!!
2 Steers is a lot of little packages to try to fit even in a big chest freezer that's mostly cleaned out.

Next time hubby decides he wants to go play with his friends and it's "pick up the steers from the butcher" day, JUST SAY NO!!

Here's how I got to my "under 2 bucks a pound" figure.

500 bucks for processing, roughly 600 for grain, 200 for the calves themselves, 100 for the milk replacer, and 300 for miscellaneous expenses (fencing, salt blocks, baling twine for the hay, feeders, castration, gas for the tractors, beer, electricity for the fencers...) that figure is probably low.

I have in my possession 1280 lbs of meat. So I did a bit of simple division (yeah, ok, I used the calculator) and came up with somewhere around 1.32 a pound. Since the 300 for miscellaneous is likely quite low I rounded up.

Before you get all "but I pay 6 and 7.00 a pound in the store" on me, let me tell you, we grow our own grain and hay. All of our feed and hay is organic, and we do all the work ourselves. These little boys take 2 years to grow to butchering weight. If you had to pay for grain, hay and veterinary care as well as routine maintenance (they do like to have food and water on a daily basis) it adds up.

So that's done for the year.

Seems we got only about 5 roosters in this latest batch of chicks, cool! So we'll cook them up one at a time as we need them, through the winter. I'll keep one to hopefully have babies in the spring. That was my rationale when buying one breed, to keep the flock going so I wouldn't have to buy them every year. Hopefully that little investment will pay off. I got Buff Orphingtons, a nice size bird, definitely large enough to provide a nice dinner, good layers and hardy through the winter.

More tomatoes to do. A neighbor says he's got all he wants from his garden and the rest are mine. YAY!! Soup, sauce, salsa, or just stewed tomatoes, don't know what they will end up as yet. I was going to freeze these ones to save myself a bit of time, but the freezers appear to be a bit... um... full of steers.

Plan B - can tomatoes instead of freezing them.

My baby sweaters are coming along - got a new granddaughter due mid November and another nephew about the same time. A few months ago I started to notice that my arms were hurting quite a lot. I'm a farmer. This isn't acceptable. Went to the doctor. Went to the specialist. Did all the tests. Tendinitis, likely brought on by too much knitting. Wait! What???? Too much knitting? A knitting injury? Really???

So now I either have to live with the pain, not knit or try to remember to knit "the new way" that doesn't move my arms a lot and cause too many problems. Seems to be the only solution. The only problem with that is that it's a bit cumbersome. Kind of like trying to type with my toes (I'm guessing, really, I haven't tried it). I begged the doctor to give me some mysterious diagnosis just for the respect thing. I mean if I told people I couldn't knit because I had a knitting injury, well, lets just say I've been the recipient of the "sideways look" before. But the best she could come up with was tendinitis due to too much knitting.

Also trying to get myself back into my groove. My Dad was sick for a long time. My mom, daughter and I took care of him until he died at home, just 2 short weeks ago. While that didn't throw me quite as much as I expected, it did throw me that it didn't throw me. Go figure, that's me, give me something to over analyze and I'll go to town!

Well, now I find myself with more time on my hands. Trying to get moved back into my house (the last couple of weeks of his life, I pretty much lived over at his and my mom's house), trying to clean between the edges... stuff like that. Hubby was awesome in keeping up with laundry and dishes.. even swept the floor, it kind of scared me.

And now I have time to decorate for holidays again!

Along that line I had youngest son bring up 2 or 3 bales of hay from the barn to put on the front porch for my "autumn display". They're still in the yard. Seems like when you're blessed with a batch of extra time, there's a whole lotta stuff just waiting in the wings to fill that void. Oh well, I will get them on the porch, get my scarecrows and pumpkins (to be displayed for awhile, then canned for pies in the winter) out, and Halloween and thanksgiving decorations put up. Likely just in time to take them down for Christmas.

Life is Good, and on the farm, it's never boring!!

Summer Recap

This will forever go down as The Summer of "I Got Nothing Done".
Garden? Planted, weeded once in awhile, harvested- yeah right! Not yet.
Critters? Minimum amount of chickens, no pigs, 2 steers (to be butchered within a month). So there will only be a small amount of chickens to winter over.
Household projects? Stove restoration - still sitting on the front porch. Greenhouse? Still sitting in my head, although I think we have all the windows we need now. Back deck? Still there, still unfinished, still no steps or railings or cute little planters.
And on and on it goes.

Why? Because I got nothing done - or did I?

My Dad (my hero, my superman, my Daddy) is dying of parkinsons. Could be days. Could be weeks. Knowing the strength of my Dad's character, will and personality, could be months.

This is what I know about parkinson's (no respect for this disease, so you get no caps! Deal with it!)
The experts all say that no one dies from parkinsons, but that it's just a miserable way to live until something else kills you. I respectfully, now, disagree.
My dad can no longer eat much. He can't stay awake long enough to eat enough or even drink enough. He is quickly losing the "swallowing" instinct so chokes frequently.
How does this not kill him?
He's been totally and thoroughly degraded, humiliated and broken down by this disease.
How does this not kill him?
His body is ravaged to the point where he can no longer walk, talk, communicate, think, or even spend any amount of time awake, let alone spend any time at all in this world that I still live in.
How does this not kill him?
There are no more "good" moments for him, he is just lingering.
How does this not kill him?
So, while I don't have the appropriate letters after my name to make a statement like "parkinson's does not kill...." I disagree.

So, what did I do this summer? Between my mother, my daughter and myself, along with the awesome, wonderful, bestest (not a word? don't care!), most compassionate people on earth who fall under the tent called "Hospice", I have spent lots and lots and lots and lots of time with my Dad. Time that will never be wasted. Time that I can never get back with my home and farm (again, don't care). Every day I still learn something new from this man who most would only see as a shell. Every day I gain time, more valuable than all the gold on earth or in heaven, with this man who when I was a small child, did the same for me.
Because he's still there. I defy you to look in his eyes. Deep into his eyes, into his soul and tell me he's not still there. He is.

Whether he has days, weeks or months left, we will still continue to give him our best, to give him everything we have, while our heart breaks. While we watch him slowly slip away.

Because he's my Dad. And he would have done it for me.

And when it's my time to linger at death's door, I can only hope that I can pull it off with a shred of the amazing strength that he has shown. And when I am able, when he's asleep, I will tell him to go. That's it's ok to go. That his parents, siblings and one of my brothers are waiting for him. That he's done his job here on earth in shaping the lives of myself and my brothers, who are 4 of the most amazing people I know. And that it's time for the next chapter of his life, to make his Heaven into an equally amazing place.

I love you Dad!

Black Dog, Revisited

Today I need to vent, just a bit, so if you're not in the mood to listen to me whine, feel free to leave. I've had a few people ask me about reference to The Black Dog. Depression has been referred to as The Black Dog. That's all, The Black Dog = depression. I fight with it pretty much daily. I'm not feeling sorry for myself, that's just the way it is.

Everyday, I have to watch the strongest man in the world, fight to try to do the little things that most of us take for granted. And every day, the strongest man in the world fails (in his eyes, never in mine) to do most of these things. And he knows it. You can see it in his eyes, and he knows it. He knows that he should be able to figure out the little things, he knows he used to be able to do it, and he knows he can't. And he knows that we consider it necessary that someone be with him all the time, and it surely burns away at his pride and ego to know that we consider him to be "incapable".

Yet, he still fights. Every day. To be the man he used to be. To be the man who is not confused by little things, like where to put the leaves he just finished raking. Stuff like that. Any why can't he get the lawnmower started, or which terminal to put the battery charger on.

And every day, we watch as he gives up the fight just a bit more, and falls into his hole. And every day, we have to figure out new ways to hold him up, to help him fight. To keep him going. To be the person he would want to be if he could.

And the next day it starts all over again. Some days are good, some are bad. I used to think it was the weather, it doesn't seem to matter. I used to think it was whether or not people were around, but that doesn't seem to matter either. We all have good days and bad days, that's just the way it is.

And every day I thank God for the incredible support system we (my mother, daughter, and I) have. For the phone calls from other family members, checking not only on the strongest man in the world but also on us. For the endless doctors who take our questions and treat us like we're the only patients in the world. For a husband who always asks how my day was, and if it was crappy, I can tell him that, and he listens. He knows he can't fix it, all he can do is listen, and he does. Even when I forget to ask him how his day went. For the friends and co-workers who hold us up in their own way, to give us a bit more strength so that in turn, we can give it back to him. And especially, I thank God for the strongest man in the world, who has taught me so much about living, loving, and life. There's still so much to learn, I will soak up every little bit I can while I can. And I sincerely hope, that if it's ever my turn to face this kind of insurmountable struggle, that I can do it with the same amount of dignity and grace and strength.

I love you Dad, but I hate Parkinson's.