Barbacoa

 So we just took our two steers in to get butchered about 2 weeks ago and we just got our meat back 2 days ago.  My little chica wanted to make barbacoa so we kept both of the heads.  This is both myself and my chica's first experience making barbacoa.  Let's just say this is an interesting experience and at times gross.

Doing barbacoa is a lot of work and it was really messy.  First thing we did was to soak the heads in water for a few hours.

Then we washed the heads super good (when I say we, that means chica, chica's hubby, and my hubby, I helped occasionally without really getting my hands dirty).  We scrubbed, sprayed, rinsed, and even pulled the brains out of the heads.  Afterward, we soaked the heads in salt water over night.

Next thing we did was rub seasoning on the heads/meat then put them in the pot and steam with some garlic and onions.  The heads were big enough to where we had to use 2 separate 32 qts pots to cook both of them at the same time.

After about 8 hours of steaming, the meat just fell off the bones.  Meat was nice and tender.

This is what 8 hours of steaming did to the cow head.

The eyeballs kind of melted too after being steamed for so long.  No one dared to eat the eyeballs so we just pulled them off the heads and tossed them.

   

I'm actually surprised at how much meat actually came off the two skulls.  It was enough to feed 2 fairly large families and we still got leftovers.  My chica cooked the tongues as well in a pressure cooker separate from the skulls.  The pan of meat has a mix of the meat from the skull, tongue and even the brain.  The meat in the top upper corner was the brain, the top left was the tongue and the rest was all from the rest of the head.  Interesting thing is that I didn't think the meat from the head would be so fatty.  The tongue meat actually tasted pretty good too.  I didn't try the brain...but those who tried it last night said it was really really fatty and greasy.  

In conclusion, this stuff tasted good.  But would I do it again?  No, a big heck no!  From start to finish it was so much work and messy.  If I ever crave for a barbacoa taco, I'll just go straight to a taco truck and get me some.

Give me some of that homegrown, grass-fed beef!

About two weeks ago, we took our steer, Jelly in to get butchered.  Yesterday we got a call from the butcher shop telling us that the meat was ready for pick up.  So this morning we went and brought him home, and he was "a changed man".

Before we were flooded about 2 years ago, we bought a baby steer to raise and use for meat.  But unfortunately that calf we named Ribeye didn't survive the flood. 

So now I'm so excited to try out our very own grass-fed beef for the first time.  This is the first time we butchered a steer that we bred and raised from the very beginning.  So I'm excited to see what the meat tastes like. 

As we had learned before, if your cows are mainly grass-fed, between 21-24 months would be the best time to butcher them.  That will give you the best quality, and best yield of meat.  We didn't keep our very best record of expenses spent on raising our cows this time.  But with our brief calculation, which includes money spent on shots, cattle cubes (they're more like treats, so we don't give them all the time), renting trailers/transportation, and finally butchering expenses, we ended up paying about $2/lb for our natural, grass-fed beef!  Now that's a steal!  Plus, we know what exactly is in our beef, and no junk, no hormones or additives added!

This is what 298lbs of beef looks like. 7 big bags full of meat!

We got a bunch of steaks and a good variety of different cuts
of meat.

This is our list of inventory.  

One very full freezer!

Reunited

So after being "in jail" for the past two weeks these two were finally reunited!  It was time for him to get weaned off.  He is 7 months old after all so it was time.

Jelly "udder-ly" missed his mom.  The second we put him back in the pasture
he went for her udder.  But of course he didn't get anything.

After two weeks her udder is all dried up and there was nothing there for Jelly to drink.
It was a weaning success!

oh chute!

So the other day I was saying Dexter's latest thing is getting out of the pasture, right?  A few days ago he escaped and wandered off.  After we located him and with the help from one Constable, and five neighbors later he was back in our pasture.  I really don't understand why all of our animal escape stories are so dramatic!

You remember I was just saying the other day that we want to get rid of Dexter?  I wasn't kidding!  We already put him on Craigslist and someone is supposed to come buy him tomorrow.  We are so tired of dealing with him already!

Yesterday when I went to check on him he escaped again!
And he was staring at me like he's just so innocent!

                               

                                  This is me attempting to put Dexter back in the pasture.  I can't even pretend like I know what I was doing because I didn't.  But hey, it only took me 20 minutes, walking through an area full of tall brushes and trees before he was back in the pasture.  Not bad.

So after talking to people who know what they're doing, the reason why Dexter has been escaping is most likely because we have too small of a herd.  Apparently two girlfriends ain't enough for Dexter.  If the two cows are really pregnant like we think they are, then Dexter is definitely not getting any action at all.  Since he's not getting any action, he escapes because he's not "entertained".  Right now we don't want to get more cows (eventually we would like to but just not right now), and since Dexter is such an escape artist, we really don't have the time to deal with him.  So he has to go!

We finally finished our cattle chute project.  It was relatively easy.  And I think it looks pretty darn good.

Hubby designed and built it himself.  I'm so proud of him.  Though he
did most of the work I did help him a little bit.

From a different angle.

It's one good-looking, well-designed cattle chute, I think.

Big bully

Sorry I really haven't been very diligent lately in updating my blog.  So this post will be a post where we catch up with all the latest farm news.

As of late, Dexter, our bull, has been liking to escape out of whichever pasture we put him in.  I really don't understand why he does that.  I know pasture is always greener on the other side, but EVERY SINGLE DAY?  Come on!  We have made it into a habit to drive by our property everyday to check on him.  And everyday undoubtedly he was in a different pasture than where we left him the day before.  We have been trying to fix up all the fencing, but he always finds a spot to escape somehow.  We are tired of dealing with him, so we are trying to get rid of him.  Anyone interested in buying our registered Dexter bull?

See Dexter?  And you see the other cows on the other side
of the fence?  Yeah, that's where Dexter is supposed to be--
the other side of the fence!

I don't know if you can see this picture very well.  It's not just
a lame picture of dead grass.  If you look closely you can see
some metal looking clips, they're called wire tighteners.  Up
until the time hubby discovered wire tighteners we had been
using fence stretcher to tighten all the barbed wires.  But now
hubby swears up and down these wire tighteners are way better
and easier to use than the fence stretcher.

Fence stays also help keep the barbed wire tight so Dexter couldn't
escape where the fence stays are in place.

Before we get rid of Dexter we are hoping he already got these cows pregnant.
Does it look like she's pregnant?  I've been told she definitely looks pregnant.
What do y'all think?

Different angle...does Blackpearl look pregnant?

We think Peanut Butter might be pregnant too.

I don't know if you noticed, this area used to be our pig pen.
Hubby took the fencing out the other day so we can put
in a cattle chute.

Working on our cattle chute.  Making pretty good progress.
We chose to use wood instead of steel for building our cattle chute
because steel is a lot more expensive.  You're looking at into the
thousands of dollars using steel.  We're using wood and it will
only cost us a few hundred by the time we're done with this project.
We figured we only have dexter cows they're not as big as the
regular-sized cows, so we're taking our chances and hoping it will be fine.

Working hard or hardly working?

What's new?

Sorry I haven't posted any updates for a while.  The reason being...there hasn't really been much to update.  I can't believe it has already been almost 7 months since our lives got turned upside down by the flood.  We are currently still staying at a temporary home.  We however, are in the process of getting another piece of property to rebuild our home and farm on.  After what we have gone through in May we just can't go back to our old property to live again.  It was just too traumatizing.  And talking with my husband the other day, I came to find out the flood really affected him more than I thought it did.  I guess I can kind of understand how much stress and pressure he was under that day when he had to worry about saving the animals and at the same time, saving his family.  I tried to help him as much as I could that day, but there was only so much this petite little at-the-time pregnant Asian woman can do.  I keep telling people, if someone could guarantee me that this place won't flood again in the next 20 years I would totally move back there in a heart beat.  I think of all the good memories we had created on this special piece of property every time we go back there to visit or do things.  I'm sorry it seems like I've all of a sudden turned this blog into a place where I share my personal feelings.  I promise once we get our farm going again I will be sharing our farming adventures instead.

So last week, our bull Dexter had escaped from the pasture 3 times!!!  So annoying!  Hubby was going out to the property a couple times trying to fix the fence lines and putting in extra strains of barbed wires, but Dexter still managed to get out. We were scratching our heads trying to figure out how he was getting out or where?  So one time when hubby was out there working on the property, Dexter escaped right in front of him, so hubby witnessed how Dexter was escaping.  So Dexter used his horns to lift the barbed wires up then he put his head and front legs through and then slip the rest of his body through. He's a pretty smart bull after all.

After seeing how Dexter escaped out of the pasture
we went to Lowe's and bought some of these fence stays.
They go horizontally down the fence line and keep
the barbed wire in place so Dexter couldn't push
the barbed wires up and put his head or body through.
They were only $6 for 12 of them.
It was a cheap fix but it sure fixed the problem...for now.
Dexter hasn't escaped once since we put those
fence stays there.

All cattle staying in the pasture.  Look how big
Jelly is getting!

This is our house now, it still is sitting there and looking the same
as it was 7 months ago after it got flooded.

This is what I miss about our property.  It's
so beautiful!

This is such a beautiful property.  We do miss it a lot!

What a pleasant surprise!

This morning when we went to check on the cows my husband was counting all the cattle and he counted 7 and he thought he saw 2 little brown calves.  At first I thought he was crazy and that he was probably just mistaken a tree log as a calf or something.  As we walked up to the cows closer sure enough there were 2 brown calves walking around!  Oh my gosh the black cow must have given birth last night!!!  When we saw the new calf this morning he was already dry and on his feet walking around.  The new calf is also brown like Meatballs and he's also a boy.  We don't know what to name him yet.  We don't even have his mama named yet.

The black cow with her baby boy.  This was her second pregnancy.

From what we were told, typically mama cows like to give birth either during the night or during early morning for whatever reason.  So far it has been the case with our cows anyway.

Did you know that mama cows like to hide their newborn calves to protect them from any predators?  We didn't know that until the other day when we checked on our cows and Meatballs wasn't there!  We looked and looked everywhere but we could not find him!!!  He disappeared!  So we assumed he was either stolen or he got eaten by coyotes or something.  We really thought he was stolen because there were just no signs of struggle or no indication that anything attacked the calf and dragged him away.  But our friends who have experience with cows told us sometimes the mama cows would hide their babies to protect them.  Sure enough the next day when we checked on the cows Meatballs popped up from nowhere and he was back with his mama and the herd.

Meatballs with his mama. This morning when we checked 

on them Meatballs was so active running around and jumping 

around, just so full of energy and curiosity.  He was so cute!  

Too bad neither my husband or I had our phones on us to 

record that moment.  But it was just so cute to watch him play.

The baby is here! The baby is here!

This morning while walking the kids to the bus stop hubby heard some pretty unusual-sounding moo's.  He was suspecting one of the cows was giving birth.  So after the kids got on the bus hubby fed all the animals then checked on the cows as usual.  And then there it was a calf sitting in the pasture with the mama cow.  Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs.  (Yes that's what we finally decided to name her.  It's a long name but very fitting) just "dropped" her meatball this morning!  Congratulations to this first-time mom.  She gave birth to a healthy baby boy (we think it's a boy).

                                          They are both trying to figure each other out.
                                          This first-time mom is still trying to figure out this
                                          motherhood thing.  

                                          They're getting there.  Warming up to each other gradually

                                          They finally got it!  Motherly instincts finally kicked
                                          in and she's licking and cleaning off her calf.  The
                                          baby finally got a hold of the teat and eating.

Mom and baby are both doing great!

The calf is sooo cute and when we went out to the pasture to see them the baby was still wet.  And there was steam coming off of the calf.

Awww

Cloudy With A Chance Of  Meatballs just gave birth and still 

has that stringy thing attached to her behind.

Isn't he cute?!  I can't decide if it's his umbilical cord or 

it's his boy part that's hanging down from his belly area. 

We are naming him Meatballs. 

Calf is hungry he's busy nursing

The polygamist cult

Cows are herd animal and they don't like being alone they like to be around their own kind.  We just got our 3rd pregnant cow today.

  The newest member of the herd, I'll call her Udder #3 for now.

So now we have a total of 5 cows, 1 bull, 1 steer, and 3 pregnant cows.  The bull and one of the cows are black, then we have one red one and 2 dun ones.  Some people swear up and down the black ones are the only pure Dexter cows.  There's no real scientific research to support that.  And some people believe the only pure dexters come in 3 colors, black, red, and dun.  I tend to believe the latter.  Any Dexter cows with different colors are probably not pure dexters.

All 5 cows accounted for.

Dexter, our bull will probably be very happy in just a few months after the cows all have their babies.  He will have no competition because Ribeye the steer has no balls so he can't breed and we will eventually use him for meat any way.  

Animals are not like human,  they will breed with every female cow in the herd, and they will breed with their own daughters and granddaughters.  Of course you don't want them to breed with their own offsprings too much.  Otherwise you'll see genetic problems with their offsprings.

They are just eating some cattle cubes off of hubby's hand.  We want our cows to be grass fed so the cattle cubes are just occasional treat

Another one of those

We just got ourselves a steer last Friday .  Another Dexter.  As mentioned in my earlier post dexters are a smaller breed of cattle and are good for people with smaller acreage.  And for those who don't know what a steer is, steer is a less manly aka castrated bull.  Before I started getting into this whole farm thing I thought all cattle are just called cows.  Who would have thought they actually have a lot of different names for them?!  So for example steer as mentioned above is the castrsted bull, then bull of course means a male cattle, cow is a female cow. But why can't people just say castrsted cow and not come up with a different name, like steer for them?! Is it just to confuse people?!   Oh and then there's heifer and that means cows that have not had babies, and cows are just female cows who have had babies.

Well anyway, so the steer (you should know by now a steer is a castrsted bull!) we just picked up yesterday is just 6 months old.  So he's still kind of cute.  I decided to name him Ribeye and there was no objection from hubby and kids. 

And we shall call you Ribeye

He's only 6 months old so if we grass feed him only then he should be ready for butchering in another 18 months or so.  If they are grass fed only, which we intend to do, then you will get the best yield and still get good meat if butchered at 24 months.

Welcome to your new home, Ribeye

Another fact about Dexter is that if you are going to get dexters for the purpose of breeding then you probably want to get a registered one.  Registered Dexter is a lot more expensive than the non-registered ones.  Reason being the registered dexters have gone through DNA testing and are cleared of having certain genetic disorders that dexters are known to have.  With this particular breed of cattle they are known to have chondrodysplasia (chondro) and pulmonary Hypoplasia with Anasarca (PHA).  Chondro is a "Genetic mutation that causes defective bone growth...and it results in the animals appearing heavy bodied of short legs."  So basically it's some kind of dwarfism.  

The other one PHA is a little bit more serious.  PHA "indicates incomplete formation of the lungs. Anasarca indicates an accumulation of fluids in tissues and body cavities. PHA-affected calf may be tremendously swollen which would make delivery exceedingly difficult and potentially life threatening for the cow."  So basically the fetus and the mama cow could both die. 

So this is the little bit of knowledge that I have of dexters for those who might be interested in getting dexters.

Exploring his new home

Sunday = no rest day

Sunday/Sabbath day is usually a day of rest.  For going to church and leaving the care of the world behind.  But if you just got a bull the other day Sunday means no rest!

We just picked up a Dexter bull on Saturday morning.  Dexter is a smaller breed of cow.  It's perfect for people with a smaller farm/land.  You'll need about 1-2 acres per a regular-sized/large cow/bull.  But for dexters you'll only need about 1/2-1 acre per cow.  Hence, the reason why we got a Dexter instead.

So yesterday after church we came home and we're looking around the front pasture to make sure the bull is settling in okay in his new home and that he was still around.  Of course he escaped!  It just seems like we always have a problem keeping the animals inside of where they are supposed to be. But to my defense this time it wasn't quite our fault, the bull actually busted the old gate that was improperly installed by the previous owners and he lifted the gate up and got out from underneath the gate.  See picture below

He busted the bottom bar of the gate then lifted the whole gate
up and escaped from underneath the gate.

So we spent about two hours looking for him, attempted to drag him back to where he was supposed to be, finally dragged him back to the front pasture with the help of a lasso and four-wheeler, then temporary fixed the gate so he wouldn't get out again for the time being.  So much for resting on the sabbath.

We found him in the very very very back corner of the property and where it's very very very swampy (we just got a lot of rain here this past week so the back of the property turned into a swamp).  Out of all the places he could have gone to or gone hiding he had to pick the swampiest and the furthest corner of the property!  This bull better not escape again!

Here he is, we named him Dexter.  How original, right?!

A closer look at Dexter