The other day I showed a friend a picture of one of our freezers and he accused me of eating too much meat.
What this friend didn't think about was that this is our food stored for a large chunk of the year. We still eat a fair number of veggie meals, probably at least two times a week, maybe more in the summer. I still visit our local butcher, but now for bacon, sausages and faggots, as well as advice and a good chat, the rest is our own.
Our food isn't delivered every week from the supermarket, or picked up from the butcher. So yes it looks a lot, but it feeds a family of five and lasts us a long time (we also have friends over for dinner and BBQ's a bit as well). If everyone had six or nine months of their meat in front of them (vegetarians excluded obliviously) it would look a lot as well I'm sure!
Yep. You are absolutely right about what meat looks like for a family that kills it's own meat. When we had a steer killed and butchered, we only took half of it and gave the other half to our daughter and our half of the carcase filled two large freezers. It took us a long time to eat our way through our half but our daughter's family of 5 got through it lickety split.
ReplyDeleteA whole cow lasted us just over a year for five and lots fo big meals with friends! But it looks like so much when it first gets frozen.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI could send similar pictures Kev. Just got two pigs worth of meat back recently. All home produced. They join the home raised chicken and lamb. We'll eat a lot, sell some, give our daughters some, share meals with family and friends who enjoy the quality of the meat. The only meat buy is some mince or stewing steak.
ReplyDeleteTwo pigs is a lot of meat! I remember when dad used to come home with a pig from a friend and zero warning for my mum, she'd go mad at him! then they'd send the night trying to sort the three freezers to fit it all in!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteGood for you. That is how it should be. Self sufficiency at its finest! I'm very envious. I have one freezer full, so not bad. But living in the city, I'm limited to how many chickens I can have, although in the Summer we grow our own veg. I still have to shop every week. What's a faggot?
ReplyDeleteit sounds like you're doing the absolute best you can with the space you've got! And fair play to you for it!
DeleteAs for faggots I've made this mistake before and forgot that some of my readers from another country might not know what one is!
Here's a link!
http://www.englishhomestead.com/2015/02/i-love-faggots.html
And some people forget if you live in the country most of us keep a good supply of everything we eat, our own produced goods and things purchased when in town. That's far more economical than driving for miles to a supermarket or to the nearest town for daily supplies.
ReplyDeleteIf you looked in our freezer at the moment it is over half full with meat bargains, shot rabbits and home grown vegetables, currently being prepared and hopefully will fit in) is the half lamb that has been gifted to us for Christmas from the local famer who grazes his sheep in our paddock and field. While he went away with some of our homemade Blackberry whisky to thank him for helping us sort Ethel the sheep out.
My freezers are lacking much game at the moment, I've really not had the time for shooting lately, Need to get outside more at night really! The fire makes it hard to leave!
DeleteWe've got veggies from the summer as well, mainly french beans!
Our chest freezer used to look like that too. Since we've fallen off from buying shares of pork and lambs our storage now is quantities of poultry and the occasional venison. Really don't eat that much red meat anymore. You have a big family and it's good insurance to have a well stocked freezer. I can see us moving that way again in the future.
ReplyDeleteI sent you an e-mail a couple of days ago, hopefully to the right address? Cottontailfarm@yahoo.com
I'll email you today - sorry I did see it but haven't had chance to reply! It's been a mad week!
DeleteWe eat a lot of lamb but only because we produce it ourselves, we hardly ate it before as it was so expensive! It's a god insurance policy like you say, I'm sure it would go down pretty quickly though!
My wife is constantly accusing me of the same thing, but at least she eats well.
ReplyDeleteYeah, we eat really well! We might not have big holidays abroad but our food is amazing and we know where it all comes from!
Delete