Do you appreciate a good steak or burger on the BBQ? I suspect you do. But do you appreciate where that steak or burger came from? Perhaps you do. Perhaps you do not. I thought I appreciated where it came from. But I’ve spent the last couple days really getting a thorough appreciation and education in my very own school of beef butchering. After watching a couple of YouTube videos class was in session for me and the kids down by the barn. How hard could it be?
If you read my most recent story you heard about our year-and-a-half-old steer who likes to jump fences. Well, we put a quick stop to his fence-jumping days. We’ve done some meat processing around our place before. Rabbits, ducks, chickens, pigs. But we learned that those are all teeny-tiny, itty-bitty animals compared to beefy bovine. Since we’re not real farmers we don’t have a real tractor, just one of the cute hobby-farm sorts that real farmers probably snicker at when they drive by taking up all the lanes of the road. But I’m not bitter.
Well, our little tractor couldn’t quite get the steer off the ground. Kids were volunteering to jump on the back of the tractor as counter-weights. Some cement blocks did the job quite nicely. Now, a steer lying on the ground is quite large. A steer hanging beside you from a tractor bucket seems quite larger. We began with step 1. Watch a YouTube video. Those guys butchering an entire animal in 20 minutes sure make it look easy! 20 minutes later we were still trying to figure out what we were doing. Thankfully, most of the kids had watched the video with me so they were full of helpful hints being the butchering professionals that they are.
About two hours later we were ready to move the meat into the clean shop with the clean tables and the…low ceiling. Remember when I said the bucket wasn’t high enough? Well now it was too high. Most real butchers would hang the meat in one piece. Would we do this? No! We would not! The ceiling was too low. The solution? Cut the meat into pieces. Humongous, gigantic, unable-to-move-with-one-person pieces of meat. No, really. One of the boys and I tried to move a piece and were shocked at how heavy it was. But we persevered, split the rear half into two quarters and got them both on the table. The tractor bucket and the ceiling were high enough to hang the smaller front half. We were done for the day.
If you think it’s a good idea to arm half-a-dozen kids with knives to help you butcher a cow…well, you’ll have to tune in next time to see how that went. Honestly, I was a little scared about this whole process. But we did it! Is there something you’re a little scared to do? Give it a shot! Try fixing the car! Try fixing the appliance! Try butchering an animal! And bring your kids along for the educational ride. Time flies. Make every moment count! Even the not-quite-like-the-guys-on-YouTube moments.
Jason Weening learns how to do stuff with his 10 kids and one patient wife. It’s almost Christmas! Grab his book, “Yes, Dear…I’m Watching Them,” on Amazon.