First Snow

Walk into the luminescent morning. The yard glows eerily from the sodium yard-light like a stage. A stage ready for a one act play starring silence. Then begin the slow dance of morning chores. Somewhere offstage, horses snort and paw the ground. They are cold, wet and hungry. The sky starts to blue up. More snow than we expected, maybe nine inches. Trees laid over. In the distance, branches tick and creak, the sounds they make as they give up, and give in, to gravity. Then the crisp snap and tree-crack; the whoosh of the falling snow. Then the quiet rushes back in.  Soft wind lays thin snowdrift up the trunks of the tall pines. I feed the herd. They are soaked and frantic. They crowd the tractor, convinced they are starving. Snow hushes all the noise, yet amplifies light and color. The fiery reds and yellows of the apricot tree glow in the the cold blue hue. A faint ember in a bed of ashes.

Long Road, Red Eyes

I always wonder what these turtles think when I pick them up to move them off the road. Is it scary, or exciting? Maybe they enjoy the view, maybe not. I'd like to believe that to them, I'm a tornado, or an airplane, or a carnival ride. 

Grass Fed Beef

It is time to buy beef. Tasty, grass fed beef. I'll be taking three steers to Your Choice Meats in Wiggins, CO. on Oct. 18. These three will be ready for pickup the first week of November. Then, sometime after the first of the year I will take three more steers in for processing. 

For those of you who are new to this: 

Where do these steers come from? - These are Black Angus steers borne to cows in our herd. They have never had antibiotics - neither as medicine nor as a sub-therapeutic fed supplement. They have never been given growth hormone implants. They have not been branded, which is a shame because we have a really great brand. It is an old Felzien family brand: Lazy sixty nine. My cows sport it well. They have been vaccinated with the standard vaccines. They are band castrated, not knife cut, which may disappoint the traditionalists out there. 

What does grass fed mean? - It means these steers have eaten only the grasses and forbs that grow in our pastures, or alfalfa hay. My steers have been free range in big spacious pastures their entire lives. Most cattle in this day and age are finished in a feedlot, where the animals are crowded together in small, filthy pens and fed a highly programmed diet high in grains, usually corn and corn by-products. These grain-based diets fatten cattle very quickly and cheaply.

Unlike last year's steers, these haven't even spent any time on corn stalks. They are as pure as the driven snow. Grass-fed beef has a lower fat content than grain fed. There is less marbling in the muscle. Grass fed beef can be slightly less tender due to the lower fat content. Also, the fat in grass fed beef is much better for you, with a proper ratio of omega 3 to omega 6 fatty acids. I won't go into detail here. I'll let you google it and see for yourself.

The beef will be dry aged for fifteen days to tenderize it, and to develop flavor. 

How big is a quarter? - A quarter will weigh roughly between 85-100 pounds. It will fill three cubic feet of freezer space. A side, or half, is twice as much. If it's too much, find someone to split it with. It is called 'cowpooling', and that is just fun to say. 

What does it cost? - The price will be a little more than last year, and will come to approximately $5.25/lb, and the payment process will be slightly different also. This year I'll have you pay the traditional way all processors use; this means you will pay the processor the fee for processing when you pick up your share, and then you will pay me my share separately. 

Processors base their price off of the hanging weight. This gets complicated, so bear with me, and if you have any questions, call me or Your Choice Meats and we can explain it. When a live animal is slaughtered and the sides of beef are hung, the weight is reduced by 60%. This is called the hanging weight. It is measured by a certified scale at the plant. You will pay about .65/lb hanging weight to the processor. This price varies based on the exact weight of the animal, and on how you have the beef packaged. Certain things incur extra charges, like having ground beef formed into patties, or running round steak through the tenderizing machine. 

After the beef hangs (dry aging for fifteen days) it is cut up however you want, reducing the weight again by approximately another 55% thru evaporation and trimming of waste and bones.

Long story short: You will pay Your Choice Meats .65/lb of the hanging weight for processing, roughly $110-$120. And you'll pay me $2.25/lb hanging weight for roughly $380.  This should work out to close to $5.25/lb. 

How does this work? - Let me know if you are buying some. Then call Your Choice Meats at 970-483-7885 and tell them you want to buy some of Ned Norman's beef. These steers will be ready for cutting on November 2. Your Choice Meats will guide you through the beef cutting list to customize the meat however you want. When the meat has finished hanging, they will cut and wrap it and call you for pick up. They can hold it for a week or two depending on how busy they are. When you pick it up, it is frozen solid. Just wrap in a few blankets or tarps and drive home and put it in the freezer. Easy peasy. 

This sounds complicated and intimidating if you haven't done it before, but it is really simple. And tasty. And healthy. Please call, or email, or post a comment with any questions. Maybe others who have done it will chime in with answers.

Insects

In August, Ella loves to go to the garden and search the Dill Weed for these caterpillars. They will become Swallowtail Butterflies. She carries them around and puts them back where she found them.

Maret is holding a Tobacco Hormworm, thick as her finger, soft as a marshmallow. Or maybe, given its size, I should say it is holding her. We always called these Tomato Hornworms but the book I just checked tells me otherwise.

We find them on the tomato plants where they can quickly denude entire branches. We spent a morning plucking them off the plants which isn't easy. You can sit and stare right at them and not see them, they are so perfectly camouflaged. Then we feed them to the chickens. It makes the chickens very happy.

This is a Half-banded Toper or a Red Skimmer. Either way, it didn't want to be held.

In my hand is a fat, hard shelled Lubber Grasshopper. You find them on the paved roads eating other dead grasshoppers. When they jump they tumble and bounce around, rarely landing on their feet.

Ella holding a Cicada. They are responsible for that incessant buzzing that sounds like some kind of deadly electrical short circuit. Ella will assure that when you hold them, however, they are unbelievably ticklish. She was giggling and laughing the entire time.