Big news from the Bender Household

We bought a cow! (I bet you thought I was going to say that I'm pregnant!)
Well, we actually bought a quarter cow, but we're going to split that with my sister and her family, so technically we bought 1/8 of a cow. But still, we're going to have a freezer full of beef! Let me share with you the story behind this decision.
For as long as I can remember, I've always wanted to live on a farm. I read all the Little House on the Prairie books, visited Amish farms, and every week my family would get our eggs from the only local farm stand in our town. There's a very big place in my heart for local family farms. But my dream of living on one probably falls into the same category as snow skiing and Alaskan fishing: I love the idea of it, but when it comes down to it I don't have the patience or drive to really make that dream come true. Besides, I wasn't born into nor did I marry into a farming family which in the long run really is the best thing for me. :)
Family farms are something that I want to support, but I didn't really think that was possible to do in the city. Chris wasn't quite as passionate as me in supporting small farms, so I had to do some creative thinking to get him on board with this decision. I did two things: I never bought steak (this really wasn't intentional, but I had a hard time paying $17 per pound on meat), and I had him watch Food, Inc. After watching the movie he said to me, "OK, let's buy a cow." So I researched it like crazy. A lot of places were still decently expensive, and I had a hard time thinking about spending so much on one type of meat. But then I discovered the trick: find a place that is not certified organic but is very honest about their practices and follows almost exactly what an organic farm would do. I'm ok with this because my primary purpose in buying from a farm is to support local farmers that have safer and healthier practices than the average conventional farm. So we are getting 40 pounds of meat for $4.45 a pound. This includes all the cuts like T-bone, prime rib, roasts, filets, and ground beef. This is a really good price! (If you want the info for the farm, let me know and I'll send it to you) So Chris is excited to have steak on a more regular basis, and both Chris and I are excited to be supporting our local farmers.
Our other big news (no, I'm still not pregnant) is that we are joining a CSA. Right now we're on the waiting list for a CSA program that delivers right to our door every week for 20 weeks. This was a decision that we had to think through carefully but these positive reasons outweighed the negatives:

• We, again, are excited to support local farmers.
• We've been buying all organic produce for Evie, so we may as well buy it for us, too.
• It's fun to cook only seasonal produce because then you get excited about strawberries in the spring, tomatoes in the summer, and squash in the fall. We have gotten so used to having produce when we want whenever we want that it takes away from the specialness of each season.
• This is a good year for us to try this since we only have 1 child and I'm NOT pregnant, so I probably have the most free time now that I'm going to have for awhile.
• I have really enjoyed experimenting with cooking since I haven't been teaching, so I have the drive and motivation to be creative right now.
• We have been needing to incorporate more fruits and veggies into our diet so this will force us to do it.

I have been really careful about keeping our food budget down, so this was, again, something that I had to research carefully. I was also able to find a farm that follows all the organic practices but is not certified, so we found a good deal with this farm. Plus every week they have certain produce that you can pick at the farm for free when you're a member. This was a perfect situation, and we were able to convince Chris' sister and her husband to join us in this (although it didn't take much convincing on their part!).

So, that's our big news. I'll be updating this blog with pictures of our cow (but just the cut-up freezer version, not the actual cow because that would be sad), our weekly produce boxes, and the meals that we are able to make because of this. I'm so excited!