Moo, Cluck, Oink?

A discovery that wasn't so new hit me the other night and I went on a crusade but first, a little back ground history here...

During the first decade of my life, I lived on several acres with livestock. We grew our own, well, just about everything. We rarely bought more than a couple of loaves of bread and some prepared canned goods like spagetti and such from the store. We ate fresh vegetables. We ate fresh meats. Beef, chicken, pork and others, too. My father was a hunter. Deer, rabbit, squirrel, alligator (yep, I'm from Louisiana), bull frog, goose, duck, pheasant, quail. We made our own jellies, jams, preserves, relishes... It was a lot of work. Most of the women that lived around us were widowed from the war. I say the war because I belive that several of them lost husbands from more than one. We gave them vegetables by the bussel. We sent over packages of freezer paper wrapped meats. We sent over new cobbler creations and homemade ice cream.

I miss that. When I decided I wanted to do an urban sustainable living type situation, I didn't know what to even call it. I found a really cool website in Patti Moreno's Garden Girl. She put a name to it. I want to be more healthy and live a better life for my children's sake and my own. And I found Green Tips. I didn't just sorta find these places. I hunted and searched, read through everything, I left no link unclicked.

So I have a plan. Buy a house. The backyard will be raised beds. I'll get chickens and have fresh eggs like I did when I was a child. I'll raise rabbits and quail. But you know, I can't raise a cow.

Herein lies the problem for carnivorous creatures such as my husband who won't eat green things if they're cooked (and most of the time if they're not, too) and a chicken barely gets him and our two son's started. Sorry Patti, you definately rate a 9 on the Greener Meter (heh, now I'll have to make a web award for that) but your life style is appealing only to me in my household. So what's a girl to do?

Well.

Buy a cow, that's what. But not a live one. I crusaded my way through the phone book and after using the excuse that I'd have to talk to my husband about those prices to more than one guy that was willing to think he could rip me off and that I couldn't make decisions on my very own, I finally found Laurel Creek. I was quoted a nice price for a side of beef. And for pigs. They have a variety of critters they'll sell to you, custom cut even.

I discussed it with my husband and he was all for it. But we'd have to buy a larger freezer, said the grandson of a butcher. I frowned. Then I smiled. Thank god the government is gonna stimulate the economy. Cause I'm going to use it to cut my grocery bill in half so that I can afford $4.00 a gallon.