Change of Plans
Looking at the calendar and coordinating the family schedules is just one of my many jobs I do. No questions asked, that is what I was doing the first week in December. I noticed an open weekend on my schedule for a moment, I really got my hopes up. I was trying to plan a fun getaway for just Joe and me. This happens very rarely during the school year; we are usually just too busy headed to another school activity. I was all excited about it I could hardly wait to talk with Joe about it.
I had a few different ideas of what we could do with our free weekend. My excitement was quickly altered, when I finally got a chance to visit with Joe, he reminded me that we already had plans to sell cows on that Saturday. Which did not completely invade into my plans, I could still work with that, just go a different direction. We made plans for us to take a little trip after our cows had sold. I was super excited at the possibility of this small getaway for just the two of us.
Well as many of you know, farm/ranch life can always throw you a curve ball at any moment. My curve ball came in and ruined all my plans for a fun getaway. Mid-week my weekend getaway was slowly fading away. When I went out for chores one morning, one of our bulls somehow managed to break his leg. This was too expensive of price to pay to not try to process him for meat. After several phone calls around to meat lockers in the area, it was becoming obvious, we were going to have to do it ourselves. Our plans of a fun weekend getaway for just Joe and I was gone.
My new plans began to take shape. I thought how on earth are we were going to butcher this bull on our own. We were very thankful that Joe’s brother was able to come and help us with this process. We got started early on Friday morning and by late morning we had the beef hanging to cool. Mother nature did her part greatly by sending us cool temperatures, to help with this process. As late evening approached, we had the meat de-boned and in containers to complete the cooling process. My family was amazing the entire weekend. We did have a few activities scheduled on Saturday, but everyone was here Saturday morning to help get us started. However, by late afternoon it was down to just my niece Cassidy and I grinding the hamburger and packaging it. We had many laughs and some great music, by late evening most that had left for their activities were back and ready to help.
Once again, even though the weekend did not go as I had planned, we had a great weekend with a sense of great accomplishments. I know to some this may seem like an odd event to enjoy, but to me it makes me proud that I was able to share yet another important aspect of how in agriculture, you need to be well rounded in your knowledge of many areas. To share this adventure with so many was a memory I will treasure. After all, Life is what you make it!
-Jodi-