Holy Cow!

It is not often you hear, "I've got to go pick up my cow".  Nicole, Cory, John and I purchased 1/8th of a cow in May and it was butchered this week.  Nicole picked it up this morning and we had a cow pool party where I collected my 1/4 of the 1/8th of our cow.  To put 1/8 of a cow in perspective, it is about 85 lbs of meat before the butcher and about 60 pounds after.  It fits into a large soccer mom cooler, but the lid won't shut.  We got a variety of cuts and a lot of ground beef.  We estimate that we paid $3.65/pound for our bounty.  I am especialy going to enjoy trying to find a receipt that will make beef liver taste delicious.  I have a particular vivid childhood memory where I told my mother that the chicken and dumplin's had gone bad because I had accidently gotten the chicken liver, a delicacy reserved for my grandmother Pearl.  In its pre-packaged form, my portion of our cow looks like this.

I don't think I have to question where the beef is

In other" return to retro practices", my garden is battling aphids and General Whitney is not winning that war.  A new strategy is required, but in this picture the battle looks quiet.  I made my first batch of blackberry jam.  It is my favorite of the jams.  Nicole picked the blackberries for me and they were the largest ones I have ever seen.  The jam does not disappoint either.  I'm hopeful for greenbeans soon.  I've got a lot of jars to fill.

Do you see that little yellow tomato? It is a pear cherry tomato.

The aphid war zone

The camera on my phone makes these jam jars look almost angelic.  Let's hope they don't float up to heaven too soon.

My Saturday was completed by my favorite dinner.  I don't quite cook it like Mama does, but I didn't do too bad with fried zucchini, mac and cheese (should have been velvetta) and soup beans with corn bread.  Charlie was my dinner companion and he brought a fabulous bottle of wine for the meal that I made him not open.  We'll share that some other time.  This really is more of a Miller Lite meal and the Blue Moon he also brought complimented the simplity of the meal.  After dinner we walked Liddy around the neighborhood and sat on the porch and watched the neighbors.  Simple summer things are why this is one of the best times of year.