Fair Warning- Butchered Cow

My life has changed dramatically since 2005. I can honestly tell you that I wasted lots in every area of my life, most importantly I wasted time. We became 'real preppers' when my husband had his accident, as we had to rethink everything. How would we make money, how would we survive etc...I am ashamed to admit this but in my previous life I am sure many called me a goody goody preppie girl! Ironically a prepper gal would be my future fate, what I was before- was a snob. Fast forward a few years and I have been allowed to live life and learn as much as I can.

Our neighbor has only known us as we are today. He is a big rodeo guy and ropes cattle in his own corrals night and day. A few months ago while roping, he broke this cow's front leg. He was going to put her down but called my husband instead. We called a friend who is a vet who told us yes we could wait, treat her injury and then butcher her when we fattened her up.

Here she is before:I have no clue what breed she is or anything like that. We paid the man who leased the cows to our neighbor for roping $40.00 for her(which was more than he would have made by putting her down). We paid him as it just did not seem right to take something for free. Well when we mentioned to our neighbor we were ready to butcher the cow the man who leased the cows came and did 90% of the work as he knew we had never done this before(He told us we paid him the forty dollars, he figured he better do something for it!)

My son is on the back left and my neighbor in the orange and the man who originally owned the cow on the right. What a tremendous life lesson my sons learned today. One how to butcher something so large and two, more importantly, that honor and respect and genuinely good people exists. The people we live with in our neighborhood(all rural) have been nothing but upstanding good folks. I am sure we could have figured out this all alone, but I would have had to be in the team of butchers, which kind of grosses me out. I would have done what ever was required for our family and the farm, but I am grateful that I did not have to do anything(well I will be cooking and canning the meat)

Pulling the hide off. We are going to try and preserve it for a rug for the master bedroom as we have no carpets in most of the house, and the floors get a bit cold in the winter!

My sons had some goof moments- here they are pretending to hold up the innards...my third son is in the orange t-shirt and my second son is pushing his back.

Here the beef is ready to be hauled to the meat locker to then be finished butchering. There is a local man who will prep all the meat at a very low price and we have tallied our costs at about 48 cents a pound. As a prepper how can one beat that? We know everything that this cow ate- pretty amazing!

Prepping is about learning skills that will enable us to handle any and all situations thrust upon us. Prepping is also granting acceptance to situations that we cannot control and therefore should accept. I would have never believed that I would be raising so much for my family. I would never believe that I would have an animal this large butchered so close to my home, yet I did.

What have you done on this path of prepping? Has it been a learning curve for you? Will you or others around you be better for it? Just some thoughts and questions on this rainy day in New Mexico.