Gave my heart a jump.

It's not really as it first appears to be, but brace yourself anyway.

Troy: "Seth put a knife in Santa's heart."

me: "WHAT???" (I thought he said "Hanna's." Plus, Seth is NOT that type.)

Troy: (Repeats himself.)

me: Pause and think, with heart thumping...Oh yeah! I just baked the heart from the steer we butchered last fall, and that steer's name was "Santa". (My heart starts calming down, and then I wonder if it's even appropriate to repeat the story.)


The preface to the whole story: Because it looked like he had a white beard on his face, the kids named him Santa. He was one of the first calves we had, and lucky enough to get named. They don't get names anymore, just numbers. Apparently, these are the only pictures I ever took of our "Santa".


Full Grown, grass fed, practically organic(except for the weed spray).


When he was butchered, that meant "Christmas dinner" all year long, right? Except then, we sold all the meat to friends, and only ended up with the heart, liver, and tongue for ourselves. Which after one try of liver, the dog and cats got the rest. Lucky them! We froze most of it, to spread out their "Christmas" dinners. Too much to give them at once. When the freezer malfunctioned over the weekend and started thawing everything, the heart was the first to be cooked. Which fascinated Alana, since they just did anatomy in science. Thank goodness, we easy resolved the freezer situation, and it's working again.

As a side note, just because I want to remember, Bridger came home on his schoolbus in the middle of the butchering. He stood there watching with us, and when the head was picked up and thrown away, he exclaimed, "Oh! It's a cow! It's all broken!" Then, the next time he looked over towards that corral a few days later, he said, "Dig-a-dig-a-dig-a, broken cow. All gone." (He still uses a lot of jibberish, consisting only of the "dig-a-dig-a" phrase.


Hmmm, maybe I could've roasted it for Valentines Day? It was WELL done, so it's just coincidence that the coloring of the photo seems to have something to do with the knife. I promise! Sorry about that!