Will work for beef……
Rump Roast on the Hoof.
We have finally found a way to use up 3000 pounds of beef – trade it for labor on finishing up a house project in Nevada. Just how did I end up with 3000 pounds of beef? Combine one inexperienced cow handler with an over zealous, non USDA butcher and you end up with 4 or 5 cattle turned into prime beef faster than you can say – medium rare. Yes this is the danger of running a business in a boss free zone – when you have people who genuinely need a boss, but don’t have one. We loaded up the local food bank with more beef than they can go through. But we still have a VERY LARGE freezer full of beef. The unique solution has appeared – thanks to Craig’s List. We saw a tile worker advertising that he would work for trade. He only wanted to trade “durable” goods, but we have found plenty of other trades people quite happy to work for beef. Everyone wins in this situation – well maybe not everyone if you consider the cow.
Picture to the left are our Mama’s on their new ranch near Minden, NV. Those are the Sierra Nevada mountains in the background. Lake Tahoe is just on the other side as is Heavenly ski resort. You can see these beautiful animals right on route 395 heading into Carson City, NV. Yes, I watched a lot of Ponderosa as a kid – it looked like a very fun place to live. We also now have chickens and are looking at getting a couple of weaner pigs. Some people approach mid-life by getting fast cars and motorcycles, seeing as I did that a while ago, I thought I’d go green acres.
We found this fantastic ranch that had been severely neglected – purchased by an investor hoping to convert it into building lots. The area is very big on land preservation and is fairly over built as it is. So, we lucked out and got an 88 acre new home for the herd for a very good price. We have some work to do on the fields, and we’re learning a lot. We have discovered that we can grow our own wheat on the land (see blog post several down on my wheat milling experiments).
