poop talk

We're driving in the car, and of course, talking about poop.

Crystal "All this talk about poop is making me want to take a crap!"

Ainsley "All this talk about poop is making me hungry!"

Another piece of meat comes into the picture....

September rolls around and Crystal gets a call from her Dad. He says he wants to know if we would like a quarter of a cow. He has a cow that he is getting ready to butcher. Actually, I think the cow was a pet of his ex wife. Now he doesn't want it anymore. We'll only have to pay processing on a quarter of it. So we say we'll take it. Dan the Cow man has told me that processing on Chuck is going to run $200 - 250. So I figure a fourth of that is going to be $50 - 75. Heck you can't beat a bunch of meat for 75 bucks! So on the appointed day we go to pick up the meat at her Dad's house. Processing was like $550 so we wound up paying $143 for our quarter. I talk to Dan and he says there's something odd about that. He thinks that maybe her Dad didn't split the processing in fourths. I don't really care because we got a bunch of meat for $143. Even if we did wind up paying more than a fourth of the processing, its still okay - I mean he did pitch in the cow! I don't think he lied to us though, he said he was surprised that the processing was so high. Plus they divided the meat out into fourths for him, and each person got one of the heart, the tongue, the liver, or something else. We got the heart and he said wait - you can have the tongue too, I don't want it. So thats a good deal! I think we wound up with over 40 pounds of hamburger!

Well, we brought it home and I' must say, it looked so pretty in our new freezer!! We cooked the hamburger a few times and it was fine. The first piece of meat we cooked was a Pikes Peak Roast. Now I have no idea what cut of the cow that comes from, but I will say that it sat in the crock pot all day long wtih some taters, carrots, and onions. It was the BEST crock potted meat I've ever had in my whole life! It was so good and juicy, it was wonderful. If all the meat tastes half as good as that then our $143 was a steal!!

But now I was worried, we're going to have a fourth of a cow in September, then a half of a cow in December. Are we going to be able to eat it all in a year? Also - if the processing for Chuck was similar to this cow, my share of processing chuck was going to cost me $300. Thats more than I was planning, but we'll see.....

Lessons from Chuck

My first lesson in cattle raisin' is that a cow is a female. Dan the Cow Man does not raise cows to eat. Dan raises steers. A steer is an animal that started out as a bull, but he sent his oysters off to the Rocky Mountians. However, for the next year I will continue to refer to Dans animals as cows. There were two main reasons for this: 1) I’m not a rancher, and 2) it annoyed the hell out of Dan the Cow Man. So please know that as I write and tell you this story, anytime I refer to cows, I am actually meaning a boy cow that has had a nut cut, which is a steer.

Well Dan has about 50 head of cattle. All of them are steers destined for the dinner table. I ask a lot of questions, partly because I’m curious, and partly because it drives Dan crazy. So Dan tells me that yes, there is a cow that is mine. His number is J-13. No, he didn't name him. No, his daughters didn't name him. Yes, we can pick one. He offers two suggestions – Butch or Chuck. “J” and I choose Chuck. Chuck, with yellow tag J-13, is our cow. Of course we ask for a picture and Dan brings in a photo of a heard of 50 cows. All of them are black. There is an arrow pointing to some cow in the back of the heard with Chuck written above it. He assures me that is Chuck. At this point I start to question whether he really has a cow picked out for me, or if I’m just going to get one out of the heard.

I start to tell my daughters about Chuck. I ask Dan the Cow Man if I can bring my kids out to the ranch so they can see Chuck. He agrees and I figure sometime when summer rolls around, I'll take the kids out to see Chuck. He lives about an hour or more from my house. The old ladies at work think I'm horrible. They can't imagine that I would take my kids to see an animal that we're going to eat. Dan agrees with me that its a good thing. Now, I never really get around to taking the kids out to visit Chuck, mainly for two reasons: 1) Chuck lives an hour and a half or so away from me. and 2) I'm terrified that when I show up Dan is going to start assigning chores - and frankly - I'm lazy.

Periodially I give my girls updates on how Chuck is doing, how big he is getting, and how tasty he is getting.

Now one day Dan comes in and wants to be sure J and I are going to buy this side of beef. We confirm that we are. He explains that he needs to know because he's getting ready to send most of the heard off to the sale barn.

Here was my second convoluted lesson in cattle. Supply and Demand in the real world. How does the cost of oil affect the cost of beef? Well of course it costs more to run the machines to get the hay, more to transport the cattle, more to pay the meat packers, so the beef will be more expensive, right? Well, not so much.

The cost of oil has gone up. That causes an increase in demand for alternative fuels. Corn being the main ingrediant in alternative fuels, we see a spike in the price of corn. From $2 a bushel to $4 per bushel. Corn is also the main ingrediant in corn fed beef. So if the cost of the ingrediants go up, the cost of the beef will do what? That’s right, it will drop.

How the hell does that work?

Well, a rancher has a bunch of animals. He knows how much corn each of those animals eats every day. He knows how much its going to cost him to feed those animals every day. He also knows that cows are a commodity. That means that the person selling the cows doesn’t set the price. He doesn’t say “Give me $2.00 per pound for this cow.” He says “I’m selling this cow, how much will you give me for it?” The buyers at the auction barn dictate the price.

So he knows that his cost to raise these animals is about to double. So he has to get rid of them. Now the market is flooded with lots of people getting rid of their animals. In addition to that, not very many people are going to want to buy this animal. The increase in the cost of corn has decreased the demand for the animal. As demand drops, so does the price.

All of that is in the short term. Long term – all of those animals have been raised, killed, and eaten. Now the supply is down. As supply drops, price goes up. So in the long run, the price of meat will go up, but in the short term when the food goes up, the cost to buy the animal goes down. See, corn is not an input into the cost of a cow, corn is an expense in owning the cow.

Anyway, so Dan the Cow Man sells most of his heard, but he keeps Chuck back. Yes, Chuck, yellow tag J-13 is getting big and tasty and is well on his way to winding up on my triple burner, Brinkman Propane gas grill with the side burner so you can cook your beans!

Quiok - another lesson: when you take the cattle to the auction you get paid by the pound. You get your cows there early in the day and they put them in a pen. They stand around in this pen all day until its their turn to get sold. If you've got it in good with the Auction guys, they'll let you go first. If not, you might have to wait until the end of the day. While your cows are hanging out in the pens at the auction place, they get stressed out and loose weight. They can loose some crazy amount like 5% of their weight. So if you're selling cows, get in good with the auctioneer so you can sell them first thing in the morning!

Where's the Beef?

Vegetarian/PETA Alert!! The following few posts will contain graphic descriptions, anecdotes, and photos of animals being killed.

It was about October or November of 2006 when Dan the Cow Man came into my office at work. “Were you serious about wanting a side of beef?” I confirmed that I was. “Okay, now there’s no backing out on me.” I assured him that I was going to take the side of beef and the lady I work with ‘J’ assured him that she would take the other half.

It was going to cost about $600-$700 for the animal and to get it processed. Basically, he tells me, you are going to get stake at hamburger prices. All right, I love stake. I need to get a freezer. We’ve got a small freezer, but I don’t think it will hold a side of beef. When do I need to get the freezer ready? November?!? Are your kidding, I’m paying $700 for beef and I want to eat it. I was expecting a month or so, but not a whole year! Hell, I want it now! I’m not really sure what I was expecting, but Dan the Cow Man buys little cows and feeds them until they are big and tasty. Once they are big and tasty, he has them killed to eat them. It takes about a year for little cows to get big and tasty. At least I would have a lot of time to find the freezer.

Now when I told my wife about this, I don’t think she was too excited about it. Actually you could say, she was just shy of being pissed. After my previous forays into bulk meat, I have to say, I couldn’t really blame her.

First there was an entire hog that I helped butcher. $80 for the hog, $40 for butchering supplies (bags, paper, etc), a weekend spent killing, skinning, and butchering the pig. Lots of fun! As I was driving home with two coolers full of pork, I thought to myself “We don’t eat pork.”

I smartened up, so the next time, when I was offered 1/3 of a cow from a coworker I asked myself the question ‘Do we eat beef?”. Yes, we eat beef! $180 for 1/3 of a cow!! That is a good deal!! I found out that what we don’t like to eat is an old cow that they are getting rid of because she (yes this was a she) was lame.

Third – no cost! Can’t beat that! Deer that a relative shot, and we butchered in a garage. Not a lot of meat, but it was free. What we don’t like is meat that you have to pick the deer hair out of the meat before you cook it.

So understandably, my wife was not too excited about the fact that I had agreed to purchase a side of beef for $600. I assured her that this was an animal that was being raised for the sole purpose of being eaten. It was being raised by a professional cow raiser. It was being raised right along side the cow that was going to be eaten by the family of the cow raiser. It was not going to get pumped full of antibiotics, steroids, hormones, or anything else that the very reliable national media has told me is going to cause my daughters to start puberty at the age of 7. This cow – Yellow tag J-13 – is being raised to taste good, be healthy, and be affordable.

Yes, we are going to have to make an investment of $600-700. Yes, we’ll get to pick what cuts of meat we want. Yes, we are also going to have to buy a new freezer. No, we don’t want a used one, it might go out and our $700 of meat would spoil. Yes, it will be processed at a meat packing plant. Yes, they are proffesional meat packers. No, we won’t have to pick any hair out of the meat. No, if the cow becomes lame, we won’t have to buy it. No, I’m not going to participate in any aspect of the raising, killing, or butchering of this animal. Yes, his name is Chuck. Yes, he lives on a farm. Yes, he is being taken care of with lots of love. Yes, he will be tasty!

Pope to St. Peter: Let the babies in!!!!!

Good news on the religious front!!!!

The pope is going to let babies go to heaven!!!

Looks like they're going to have quite a backlog on the their books - every baby that wasn't baptised and everyone that died before Christ. Glad I'm not standing in that line!!

I wonder how long it takes St. Peter to get the message from the pope. On that note, how does the pope send mail? Does it come by special curior, or just through the mail?