Where's The Beef?

At the Old Homestead, of course!

Two weeks ago we dropped off two steers at Duncan Meat Locker. (If you're within hauling distance and have animals that need processing, give them some consideration, the place is well-established, right in down town Lakin KS, very clean, extremely courteous, and they do both beef and pork. They'll even process your deer, all at very reasonable prices for excellent work.*)

Today we picked them up in boxes. Over a thousand pounds of beef, now spread over four households. And for a damn sight cheaper than that much meat would cost in the grocery store, even accounting for the cost to raise the cattle.

Oh, there will be steaks tomorrow night, my friends, there will be steaks.



* I did not receive any compensation from Duncan Meat Locker in cash or other valuable considerations for talking them up on this blog. I simply admire work done well and cheerfully, for a reasonable price.

Get Porked!

Bacon and sausage patties. Potatoes onions and bell peppers cooked in the grease from the pork, with crumbled sausage mixed in, eggs fried in butter over medium.

Because sometimes, a girl just needs to get porked.

Time To Celebrate!

Peter is doing well, and back online!

I must admit I leaked a bit reading his post about the whole incident. And then giggled, because I can just see him arguing with the nurses about cutting his pants off.

Welcome Back, Peter. You had us worried there for a bit!

Somebody's About To Go Behind The Woodshed...

And get a whuppin'.

Twice in a week someone has run through our gate, and the second time they made a loop back to run through another section of fence.

Cows out, horses out, and me out there in the dark, the cold, and the wet mist fixing the gate.

It's enough to make me contemplate the best tool for beating some sense and courtesy into their thick skulls, if I could just find 'em.

This last time, the cattle had been out, but we got the call about the horses. The three horses that aren't halter broke, are fairly distrustful of strangers who aren't with their people, and hate pickup trucks trying to herd them.

By the time I knew anything about it and got out there, I could see that the cattle had been out, and I assumed that the neighbor had eased them back home. They know where they're supposed to be.

It was also getting dark and the cattle were eyeballing the hole where the gate used to be like they might just wander back out, and I couldn't spot the horses in the dim light. So I fixed the gate by the headlights of mom's truck, hoped that the mares would have enough sense to keep the half-blind stud horse away from the roads, and went back in the morning.

Found 'em across the road and behind our pasture on one of the neighbor's farm fields, luckily fallow for the winter.

I took the grain bucket and talked sweet to the ponies while Farmmom went to open the gate and fix things right, since I'd had to make do the night before. A little sweet talk and rattling of the bucket and they came right along, and we hiked our way around the fence and back to where they were supposed to be.

I could have saved myself about a hundred yards on the walk by leaving them in the pasture across the road, as that gate was closer, but with Dusty as blind as he is, I prefer to keep them on the territory they're intimately familiar with. He's good about sticking with the girls and he's more likely to spook towards one of them if something startles him, but I'd rather he know where the gullies and drops are himself.

It was surprising to me yesterday that my buckskin mare was the first to come a-runnin when she figured out I had grain. Usually she sticks with the others, keeping one of them between people and her at all times. She's so shy, I've only touched her once or twice.

She's taking over the lead position from the older mare, though. Poor Roanie is getting so old that she's just breaking down. I'm not sure she'll make the winter, but she's still got a spring in her step and she'll kick up her heels yet. I don't want to put her down while she's still enjoying life, just because she's not holding weight like I'd like. If I ever find her down and unable to get up, then that's it, but she's still loving life right now.

Especially since the weather started to turn cold and we started bringing her and the other two a measure of grain every time we're out there.

She is letting the buckskin mare make more of the decisions, though. Yesterday morning Muffin came loping up to a beautiful stop about ten feet from where I was kneeling down on the ground waiting for the other two. She stuck out her neck and sniffed towards the bucket and then stood there shifting her weight back and forth. She knows if she comes up to me and follows me, she gets grain. She's seen Roanie walk right up to me and get a bite from my hand before we started walking, so she knows that could happen, but she's so shy of people she can't bring herself to eat from my hand.

Maybe taking over the lead mare position will make her more bold. Roanie always treated the attention and scratches like they were her due as head honcho, so perhaps Muffin will let us get a pet in now and then. I'm not going to push her on it, but if she asks, I'm not going to disappoint.

Bayou Renaissance Man...

Is in the hospital after a nasty brush with a heart attack. The prognosis at the moment is good, but he'll be there for at least a week, I'm told.

Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers and maybe drop by his blog to give him your well wishes.

Religion

Sunday, I posted a bit of a rant about a different twist on a haunted house, and in the comments, a bit longer rant about organized religion in general.

It never ceases to amaze me, how many people email me on a subject rather than comment on a post.

Not complaining, mind you. I get a little warm fuzzy feeling each time I look at the email account for this blog and see that someone has written me. It means people are paying attention, and going to the effort to look beyond the front page for my email address.

But some of the emails regarding Sunday's post weren't exactly flattering. And a couple contained exactly the sort of "Come To Jesus" posturing and bullying that I was complaining of in the first place!

So I'm going to clear up a few things.

First off, I don't hate god, God, Kali, Buddha, Apollo, Pan or any other deity. Regardless of what one of my more vehement emailers may think, I do have a quite healthy relationship with deity. I just don't feel that I need someone else to guide me in my beliefs.

As for why I use the term deity rather than God, well, it's a case of having far too many people assume that I am their particular stripe of invisible-being worshiper, and poke and prod at me when they figure out that I'm not.

My issues with organized religion come from bad interactions with said organized religious types, be they congregation, parishioner, or leader. I don't believe that any god would approve of some of the things done in their various names, and thus far have not found an organized belief system that I can agree with totally. I honestly don't feel that a deity cares whether you are in a church, temple, or sacred grove or not.

I'm not saying that I haven't met great people who believe very firmly in the tenets of organized religion. For one, an insightful and caring retired pastor from South Africa whom you may know as Bayou Renaissance Man who is, in my opinion, one of the best examples of what faith should be. During hard times, he has offered an ear, counsel, and simple loving friendship to me, and it has been much appreciated, even though most of the time I just can't bring myself to burden someone else with my worries. I respect and like Peter very much, and more so because he doesn't push his beliefs on others, simply makes sure that they know he is there if they do wish to talk about something.

Another is a Born Again Christian preacher who has that black-church-with-a-choir passion about his beliefs, who I had the great fortune to meet while I was at school. He felt very strongly about his relationship with God, but he never pushed. We had several religious discussions over the two years I was at the college, and I have no doubt that we'll have more. The great thing about this man is that with all of his passion for his faith, he never once made anyone feel like they were wrong if they didn't believe the same things he did. He would listen, and discuss, and think about the things they said. He has the kind of generous heart that is all too rare in this world. He smiles when he preaches, because his faith makes him happy.

Far too few people in this world can truthfully say that their faith makes them feel happy.

Is it so wrong to feel that my beliefs are no one's business but my own? Who does it hurt?

For that matter, who does it hurt if your neighbor worships at an altar in their living room rather than one in the church on the corner?

Or if someone wears an Ankh rather than a cross?

Good people are good people, regardless of what name they call their higher power. Everyone believes that they're right about the organization of the afterlife, but no one knows. That's why it's called faith.

Let your neighbor have theirs.

Linky, Much Thinky

Just a link today, but it's not the usual linky-no-thinky, because the post will make you think quite a bit.

For those of you who don't already read Bayou Renaissance Man also known as Peter, he should definitely be added to your daily trek through the Internet.

Today he honors a fallen friend, and in the process reminds us that honor, courage, and great leadership are sometimes found in what, to us, might seem the unlikeliest places.

Go Read and remind yourself that great men still walk among us.