Christmas Came Early

Christmas has already started for me.

When Dan was by today, not only did I give him his gift, but he also gave me one. I wouldn't have opened it until Christmas day, but he wanted me to. He gave me a $25 gift certificate gas card so I can go out and have fun over the holidays without worrying about gas in my truck. He also gave me $4o cash to use for gas or whatever else I would want to spend it on. In a card he wrote "Have a gas this Christmas", LOL.

"Where's the beef?"
In my freezer!

My other early Christmas present is Beef. Free range beef. The other day on Freecycle there was an offer giving away what she called half a deep freeze of beef for your dog. I have a rottweiler so figure any extra food for her is a bonus. I wrote and asked for it, as I'm sure many people did, and I got it. Also, the lady lives about 45 minutes out of town, but goes right past my place on her way in, so she was nice enough to drop it off here when she next went in to town.

She told me that a fellow had owed them money, so gave them all this free range beef to pay his bill. They cooked a roast but didn't care for the taste of the gravy from it. She said the meat was probably just fine for human consumption, but because they didn't like the taste she doesn't know if anyone else would either, so figured it would be good for dogs/cats.

This is one T-bone steak! So big it almost didn't fit in my frying pan! I decided to cook one and see how it tasted, though must admit I was almost scared to taste it in case it tasted gross. It smelled just fine before and during the cooking, so I gave it a try. It did taste a bit strange, but not bad. I figure it's likely due to what the animal was eating... wild plants on a range rather than hay and grain in a feed lot. As usual, I added a bit of steak sauce to it and it made a marvelous dinner for me last night. Reba (my dear dog) really enjoyed all the scraps and the bone. I still have a huge chunk of it in the fridge for supper tonight.

I totally emptied out my little freezer of everything except the chickens and pigeons I butchered earlier this fall. Well, I ate one chicken already, but the rest are still in the freezer. Then I filled it as full as I possibly could. Then I made as much room in the fridge freezer and stuffed it full too. And there is still more. It's out in the back of my truck, lots of roasts. Hopefully the weather will keep it frozen until Monday so I can take it to my Mom's and put it in her freezer for now. Or maybe I'll "re-gift" it to a few people. That would be fun.

As I brought it into the house, I weighed it all. First I stepped on the scale and got my weight with boots, jacket, etc... then out I went for the first bag. Coming in I stepped on the scale and got the weight, subtracted my weight and got the weight of the bag o' beef. I did this with all of them, then added it up.

93 Kg of Beef!!
That is 205 pounds of beef!!

To me that is amazing... almost like a ton of gold. Food for me and Reba, and even some for my cat Shadow. We will have a wonderful winter... and then some! If I get a chance to go to a Pot Luck I'll volunteer to bring a roast, haha. There are roasts, steaks, ribs, stir fry, loads of ground beef.

PROSPERITY!!!!

I am so grateful for this wonderful gift.