Freezers Full of Meat

At this time of the year, my freezers are full. My MIL raises chickens and pigs for us all. My BIL and his wife took over the cows, and every year we have one slaughtered for our year-supply of beef.

pork freezer

beef freezer

Upright freezers seem better for access to the different cuts of beef and pork. Organization is so much easier to maintain. The slaughterhouse prepacked our beef for us. I did the packing of our pork, using the FoodSaver. I had to freeze some of them before I ran them through the machine, to lessen the fluid (which makes it harder to actually seal).

chicken and misc freezer

On the other hand, since we mostly use whole chicken, either roasted whole, or eventually cut up, I just packed most of them whole in big bags and chucked them in the chest freezer. I only had several bags of chicken necks, gizzards, and feet, which are easy enough to locate and access. I use the wire basket and the side "pocket" as containers for miscellaneous items like lamburger, lamb shanks, and veggies.

My MIL has chicken layers to continuously supply us with the freshest eggs. Sometimes I use eggs freshly laid for baking rolls, or for scrambled eggs.

It's quite an expensive season during this time of the year for us, with all these preparation for food, the Holidays, the winter heating using firewood and some oil, and of course, taxes, but we do prepare ahead for these.

Is it cheaper to raise your own foods? No. About the same as when you buy them from the grocery store, or maybe even more expensive. But the peace of mind knowing where our food came from, what lives they lived, the care they got, the lack of antibiotic and steroid load...PRICELESS. Someday, I hope to learn how to raise them, too...

Oh please don't ask me to play with the word organic...I would rather say, wholesome. Organic to me means C as in carbon (the basic building block of life, along with H for hydrogen, O for oxygen, and N for nitrogen).