Look at that layer of hard fat on Clyde! Cliff and I have finally figured out how to get good beef: Butcher a calf by the time he's a year old (Clyde was ten months) and leave him sucking Mom's milk until we take him to the butcher shop. He never had anything but milk and grass except for a rare bite of sweet feed, and a few protein bars in the winter.
Tomorrow they'll turn him into burger, roasts, and steaks, and by next Monday we'll bring him home. We found a cheap used deep freeze, so we won't be having to give any of that good meat away just to make room. I have, however, offered some of last year's ground beef to the grandson for a very reasonable price.
After checking out our beef, we went down to the Sni, where the water is touching the new bridge. The Sni Mini Mart folks are preparing for the worst in case the floodwaters threaten them.
Then we went to the Corp of Engineers park and watched the rising water of the Missouri River rush past.
I was in the mood for some "peachy" dessert this morning and ended up making this cobbler. Now, I really prefer the kind of cobbler my mom and grandma used to make, which was more of a square or oblong pie; you know, with top and bottom pie crust. Unfortunately, that would mean we'd be consuming several tablespoons of shortening with each piece, and we don't need that.
I thought about making peach crisp, but in my experience the crispness doesn't last. It's only "crisp" right after you make it.
So I made this kind of cobbler with the shortcake topping; it'll be wonderful with just a little vanilla ice cream.
Because Cliff gets up at 10 A.M. and leaves at 2:30, it's hard to squeeze in breakfast and dinner; often he'll have just a tiny bit of breakfast to tide him over. But sometimes, when I am planning a more elaborate dinner, he gets dinner almost as soon as he's out of bed. I cooked one of the roasts from our butchered steer overnight in the crock pot (it's unbelievably tender). This always leaves lots of tasty juices with which to make gravy. I peeled some potatoes from the garden, and I will cook some sort of vegetable to go with this.
We'll be eating by 10:30. The worst thing about having dinner for breakfast is that we take our walk after breakfast; we will have some full bellies, walking in the heat of the day. It's really hard to keep up the daily walk when we don't get out there until 11:30 with temperatures already hitting 90 degrees.
I have good news from the garden front:
Although my tomato plants are succumbing to blight, it looks like I'll be able to can a few before they're all gone. There are enough in this picture, I think, for fourteen quarts. Of course some of them have to ripen a bit first.
I also have bad news on the garden front: I found a squash bug on the zucchini plant that is almost ready to produce. I sprayed, but that hasn't helped much in the past. Oh well, I get an "E" for effort, right?
