All done

We finished the last of the steer today. We spent most of the day at our friends, Eddie and Jenny's house washing, cutting and grinding meat into hamburger. Including the 4 pounds we ate at lunch, we had 203 pounds of hamburger. We also have the usual roasts, ribs.....

Its a lot of meat.....

We had 8 homeschool kids there, and the older ones helped grind, weigh and label and package the hamburger.

cow hide anyone??

We have a large (white fur) cow hide from a full grown steer. It is large enough to cover a chair or loveseat. $100. If interested, let me know! Right now it has rock salt on the skin side of the hide. I am not opposed to shipping it (at your expense). Unique-comes with a couple of bullet holes....

I figure somewhere out there someone who tans hides would love this one.

Steer butchered today

Thanks to some friends, as they actually did the work. Butchering is brand new to JD and I, and we had no clue what to do. This steer was crazy--tore up fence, got out often, charged me and JD, even charged his own reflection in the pond. He had to go. Trouble was, he had no intention of getting into the trailer to take a ride to the butcher. The state laws say he has to arrive alive, so the idea of shooting him here, then delivering him was out.

So, some friends of ours came over (thanks Eddie and Jenny!) and the men shot him, and shot him. He refused to go down. Finally he did. We got him skinned and ready to the point of starting to cut the meat cuts we want tomorrow. It was cold, 31 degrees. We started a little after 9 this morning.

Around 6 we took him to another set of friends (Craig and Kelly's) and put him in their building. The have a nice area where we can finish up tomorrow out of the wind!

He is huge. Much bigger than we thought--somehow he looked smaller in the pasture. Having never done this before, we had no idea what we were getting into. We just knew we didn't want to have him on the farm for another summer and that we didn't want to butcher him after the weather got warm. We are glad to be rid of him, and all involved will have meat for the freezers.

Tomorrow evening the girls are in a science fair in St Joseph MO. We have a volcano, weather research and information on recycling and trash. They will be finishing up the final touches tomorrow after church, so us girls may miss out on part of day 2 of the butchering.

Found the missing cow

Elizabeth and her sisters found the run away cow this morning. As hoped, she was in the pasture with the other cows. That is a huge relief. No fun in chasing down a cow in 30 degree weather...

My parents return today from Arizona. They have been there visiting my aunt who has cancer.

This evening we also have a library class to attend and later in Liberty we may attend a storm spotter class. The girls and I are already storm spotters (we were trained last year) but I think it would be good to go to as a refresher. We may also get to see some new footage of last springs local tornadoes. If we do, they will get 2 hours of science for it. A lot of homeschooling is hands on. More interesting than reading it in a book.

Poor Rebecca is having to redo several math pages. She didn't read her symbols. She missed the fact that it was a review and did the problems as multiplication, when some of them were addition and subtraction. Next time she will work a little slower. That is another plus of homeschooling. In a public or traditional school setting, they would most likely be marked wrong and recorded as a failing grade, as the class needs to move on. However, I hand it back for her to redo it. A lot of things we redo until we get it right. That's how we learn. Causes less frustration.

Tomorrow we have homeschool coop. This semester I am teaching 2 classes on the American Presidents, and one on Missouri. Emily is taking: debate (2 hours long), snack shop (they run the concession stand and learn to order inventory and take money and make change), and volleyball. Elizabeth has baton, scrapbooking, spanish and ooey gooey science. Rebecca has scrapbooking, watercolor, repeat art (deals with patterns in art) and ooey gooey science.

Busy week

Its one of those weeks. Sunday was church and skating party, Monday we hit the school work rather hard and the girls worked on their science fair projects, Tuesdays are 4H, Wednesday (tonight) Girl Scouts, Thursday we are on standby (per my mom) to pick up my parents from the airport should my brother have to work (he is in law enforcement and gets called in on his days off quite often), Friday is coop, and Saturday we plan to farm butcher our steer. Sunday is church again and that evening a homeschool science fair in St Jo.

The steer may be getting pushed back a week as we need to find one more meat grinder, and it is a crazy week, but that will mean JD will need to take a vacation day and he has to see if that is an option first.

Today was a sad day on the farm. We lost a chicken and a rabbit--the rabbit to old age, and the chicken to most likely a coyote. And now, we have found that that Hershey (Elizabeths heiffer) is missing...cant find a black cow after dark, so that will be our project in the morning. Most likely she is in the pasture with her mom.

Some days we just have more drama on the farm than others....for now, off to scouts.

Great weekend

Friday was our first day of homeschool coop for the semester. We had a real good time, and a good turn out, even though several families were gone to another event. All the kids were glad to see each other after the winter break.

Friday night was our "Love Banquet" at church. The church youth group cooked and served the meal. They did a very good job. We had salad, cake, veggies and cream cheese stuffed baked chicken. The youth group also provided the entertainment.

Saturday JD, Rebecca and I, along with our friend Randy went to St Joseph to Lowes to pick up a barn. I bought a wooden barn off of craigslist from the shed company that supplies the sheds/barns to Lowes. It was a demo shed, all put together left over from last year. The shed was orginally $1200 and I got it for $300. It is a nice shed, built on metal runners.

Saturday night, we went to the Lathrop Antique Club meeting (we are members). As usual, the meetings start off with a carry in dinner. Following the meeting we had a white elephant auction.

Today (Sunday) we had church this morning. Emily and I were in the 2 yr-4 yr nursery. That is always fun. Then this evening, the church had the skating rink in Liberty rented for 2 hours. We had a lot of fun skating (and for me watching).

21 hours and 12 minutes.....

Until coop starts. My girls have been counting down until our first session of this semesters homeschool coop. Our coop meets every Friday Feb though April, and again September through November. They are anxious to see their friends, some of which they have not seen since last November.

I am teaching 2 classes this semester, for a total of 3 hours. First and second hours I am teaching "Parade of Presidents". First hour is for younger students, and second hour for middle grammar students. Third hour I am teaching "Marvelous Missouri" to middle grammar students.

I am excited about my classes, and have learned a lot myself as I prepare for them. The state of Missouri has been wonderful and sent me all sorts of information and lots of items to pass on to the kids, free of charge.

My daughters are taking volleyball, scrap booking, watercolor, American Girl, Ooey Gooey Science, Baton, Debate, Snack shop (they actually operate a small business in this class-operating the concession snack shop at coop-learning inventory, and handling money), Spanish.

Other offered classes which we are not taking are genealogy, geometry, choir, band, crafts, dissecting lab, flying creatures, early life skills, art, PCT Prep, sewing, photo, phonics, quilling, snare drum, yearbook and a lot more.

Tomorrow evening we have our Valentine Banquet at church. They youth group is serving it as a fund raiser for their upcoming summer activities. Today the girls have been baking angel food cakes as part of the deserts to be served.