January and February are our slowest months of the year. It is a bit of a shock after November and December, which are our busiest months of the year. But after the craziness of the holidays, most people tend to hunker down for the rest of the winter and nurse their expanded waistline (me too!) and the bloated credit card bills. Come March, things start picking up and then by April we are back into the swing of things.
Because of this timing, I have to schedule my times with the processor accordingly. June? Need two cows that month at the processor. January? I don’t need any. Why process a cow and stuff the freezers full of beef, only to have it sit till March anyway?
Except this year, I guess everybody went on the hamburger diet. I don’t know. But we are nearly out of hamburger, and short on a number of other things. I have a cow that is slated to go as our next hamburger cow, but it takes 90 days to get on the schedule there, meaning it will be spring before I can get any meat back. That just won’t do.
Fortunately, a local processor has been trying to get me to bring them a cow so that I could try out their services. They are not nearly as backed up as my normal processor, which could be a sign. But they are an old processor under new ownership so they are supposedly trying to turn things around. We can give them a try, and get ourselves out of this bind. A win-win.
We should have fresh beef back from the processor next week, probably Thursday. It will mostly be hamburger, because that is what we are short on, but I did select some ribeyes and filets in the cut sheet as well.