The young green onion bulbs are finally starting to sprout, but they sure took their sweet time. Hopefully the pea sprouts will be moving along faster as they come up.
I had truly hoped that by this time I would have a small spot in the front flower bed that I could put one of my spring heat covers and I had dug out some pots of soil that I made up last year and put a few extra’s in.. a couple have dormant horse radish roots, some have dormant nettle roots and two of them are winter sown with pigweed seeds..
Given they are made up with outside soil and all the natural bugs that come with it, I do not want to move them into the house. I am sure like you when it comes to spring and seed starting, you are staring with clean soil, clean pots etc.
However the snow will not stop.. We have had some melting every day at the highest temps but even with that, I have a extra foot and half of snow everywhere then I did last week and the temps are going down right now.. not up. We were to have a nice plus 3 or 4 and now they say we are going to have -13 brrr
This freezer right now is pretty empty looking at this point but it was sure full when I had done both my beef and pork for the year back in 2015 when this photo was taken.
Today’s topic is freezer meats, aka what most people consider “fresh meat” but as we will at some point get to me bringing fresh meat from the farm.. I do not consider it fresh.. its freezer meat but it is raw meat.
Hubby pulled out a package of beef for me to use, which was a good hint that maybe I had been using to much canned meats. Fair enough, there is a difference in taste and texture with canned meats. Plus I made hamburger steaks with BBQ sauce.. very yum.
Do you keep a goodly amount of meat in the freezer? or are you more of the can the meat and keep the freezers for veggies or fruit? I know enough folks that pretty much only have meat in the freezer and can or dry the veggies and fruits or I know a couple ladies that are totally the other way round.. all their meat is processed in some way and its nothing but a veggie feast in their freezers.
I am normally a mix.. I put away fruit and veggies in the one freezer though the harvest season but I slowly process or use it up and by the time butcher season comes around, its used as a meat freezer most of the winter.
My freezers at the moment are both getting lower just based on the time of the year and will get even more so with the challenge.
How are your freezers looking.. still full and going strong or starting to show the time of year as well? Even if you are seasonally buy a quarter or half a beef or pork, its interesting to see it reflected in what is in the freezers at this time.
Just another Day on the Farm 
You’re right that canned meat is a different texture…I generally stick to stews and headcheese if I’m canning meat. Like you all our meat and vegetables are farm raised – I stock up on the premise that it has to last until the next butcher season. Works out to one 18 month old steer, one (sometimes two) pigs, fifteen meat birds. We breast our our old layers – I marinate and freeze or sometimes can them up. Only vegetables I can are beets – I’ve done others, but much prefer the frozen (better texture I think). We did well on vegetables last year – usually were out of something by now. The meat is fine. I would ultimately prefer not to run freezers…..but seems there’s no getting away from it. I’ve one each for pork, beef, chicken and veggies, and a small one for butter and cheese I make from our cow.
I like your pantry challenge – it always reminds me to take a look around and see where the gaps are.
Wow!! Your freezer is amazing!
When I was growing up my parents did a lot of putting things up. We were not a fully functioning farm like you are, but we had a fish pond, vegetable garden, pheasants, quail, and my dad hunted for wild game – plus my bantams (not for eating! pets and eggs only… though a couple of the little roosters did their best to convince us otherwise…) so we ate out of the farm and froze things a lot. It’s been so long since I have had a freezer like that, though. My life turned to college and early adulthood and living apartment to apartment and moving every year.
For the first time now I have a deep freeze again and it’s glorious! This inspires me to looking into seeing if I can split a bulk meat order with some friends and stock it up this year. I know there are some CSAs around here that do that. Thank you!
your more then welcome, even if you just stock up on the sale cycles in the meat department, you will quickly build up some extra in your new freezer. sounds like you had a great home and life style while growing up 🙂 and congrats on collage, I remember moving into my tiny apartment when I started at collage.. so many changes and so many moves.. it was very different for me as well over those years