Lockered Beef....

[goldensmom]

It is a reinforced concrete box, rectangular shaped, that has no lid or bottom--those are separate, because the specifications vary on them.......

I don't think I've ever seen one. I was picturing it atop a mobile home 'trailer' but now I picture it on a utility trailer which makes more sense give your description.

[Packy]

I don't think I've ever seen one. I was picturing it atop a mobile home 'trailer' but now I picture it on a utility trailer which makes more sense give your description.

I'm just using the trailer to haul it from the supply yard, to my place--it doesn't stay there for long, hopefully. After I do some work on it( mainly cutting holes in it for piping)and make a top for it, it will be set in a hole in the ground. It's basically serves the same function as a plastic or metal junction box that you use in building wiring, and run conduit to, only a concrete pull box goes underground. Hope that helps you some.

[bbillinohio]

Or Pork, etc. Does anyone here go so far as to buy a whole animal at a time, have it "processed", then store it in your assigned "locker" at a butcher shop? I surdon't, but I know it's a sign of affluence and a source of pride out in the rural heartland. Big cuts of meat x 3 squares--it's what's fer dinner!

When I was growing up my grandparents had a farm. Every fall they would butcher a cow. They would kil, skin, gut it.......and then 'break it into quarters. The quarters were then taken to the local locker where everything was cut, wrapped, and frozen. My grandparents rented 'locker' space and the beef was stored there.

It was NOT seen as a sign of affluence. My grandparents did not have a chest or upright freezer......they simply did not have any way to keep it frozen.

BTW, the first meals after butchering.......tongue and liver.

[bbillinohio]

Or Pork, etc. Does anyone here go so far as to buy a whole animal at a time, have it "processed", then store it in your assigned "locker" at a butcher shop? I sure don't, but I know it's a sign of affluence and a source of pride out in the rural heartland. Big cuts of meat x 3 squares--it's what's fer dinner!

Something I have done.........when I had enough goat milk.......I bought either Jersey or Holstein bull calves, used the goat milk to raise them up to 6-9 months of age.......then they went to 'freezer camp.' I ended up with ground beef that was very, very lean.

[bae]

I will sometimes have a butcher dry-age a beef, or parts thereof, which is a royal pain to do properly at home.

[Blackdog Lin]

BTW, the first meals after butchering.......tongue and liver.

I grew up eating offal meats. Liver was okay, but tongue.....now that's a delicacy few people can appreciate. A wonderfully cooked tongue sandwich, slathered with ketchup.....good stuff!

(a couple of years ago we met my sister and her husband for a picnic - and she surprised me by bringing tongue sandwiches! She remembered how I loved them. And they were awesome. It had been many many years.)

[Suzanne]

I used to raise our meat and store it in our gas-powered deepfreeze. Sign of affluence? Nope. In our sourveld Highveld region of South Africa, affluence was exhibited by buying fruit. Meat cost us nothing, seeing the property had good grass and acacia trees (the pods are high-protein fodder for livestock, balancing the carb-heavy fibrous grasses). This is a semi-arid to arid region, with very thin, acid soils with a very high capping factor. I built up the fertility of a small plot of my land with the manure of my dairy cows (bull calves became beef), plus all the organic waste I could scrounge (including shredded paper and wood shavings from a nearby small furniture factory), and grew quite a lot of veggies. I'd have needed to rent a backactor, or maybe use explosives, to get a hole deep enough in the granite subsoil to plant a tree in. Another major drawback was that the borehole didn't produce enough water to support fruit trees. A bowl of peaches or grapes on somebody's table was a definite statement of affluence...

[Packy]

All interesting perspectives....

[Suzanne]

Thanks for "Cows Around", Bae!

[catherine]

Well, my DS talks about the time when he shared a house with a few guys during grad school. One day he looked out in the back yard and two of the guys had purchased a goat and were in the act of butchering it in the yard. Not sure where these guys were from exactly, but they were from a culture where this was not unusual behavior--however, it totally horrified my son and the rest of the students living in the house.

I don't know if they lockered the goat or not, but I'm sure they did this to save money.

I've always said that if I couldn't personally kill an animal, I shouldn't eat it, and I stand by that for the most part, although now I let people I trust kill the little meat I eat.