- We drove across Minnesota today to pick up the quarter beef I ordered from Moonstone Farm a couple weeks ago. Last year, we paid $2.10/lb on 135 lb hanging weight plus $85 processing. That translates to $380 for 105 lbs of beef (hanging weight is how much the cow weighs as it walks in; organs and extra parts don’t go home with me). This year, we paid $2.20/lb on 201 lb hanging weight plus $90 processing and came home with 130 lbs of beef. Take home costs appear to have gone up from $3.60/lb to $4.10, although I think my last year’s cow was really efficient somehow.
- Our extra freezer is so full of berries and flour and nuts and dried fruit that we took a few cuts out of the boxes, then immediately drove another 30 miles to bring the remaining 120 lbs over to my parents’ house and take over half their extra freezer. I did bring back most of the frozen chickens they’ve been holding onto for us.
- We left the house at 12:30, a couple hours after we intented. It’s 150 miles to the farm, where we like to chat with the farmers and wander around. We couldn’t look around as much as we would have liked because of our late start, but it wasn’t super-rushed. Someday we’ll stay overnight at their Broodio without the kids. They have the cutest, nicest outhouse I’ve ever seen.
- After the farm, it’s 20 miles to the butcher, who was luckily open until 5:30 and not 5 pm like I thought, since we got there right at 5. Not sure what we would have done if they were closed. Dawson, MN was very cute, but I’m glad I didn’t have to hunt down a hotel. We didn’t have the butcher’s address, but found the main street and saw a row of century old brick buildings with a drug store, hardware store, post office, and bakery and figured the butcher shop had to be nearby.
- We tried to find a café where the farmer told us we could get a hamburger with Moonstone beef. We couldn’t find it, but wandered around Granite Falls trying to find a non-chain sit-down restaurant for dinner. If you ever find yourself there, de-Toy’s Family Restaurant is not the place to stop. There’s a reason it’s empty on a Friday night. And please, please don’t ask for the salad side dish. It’s Iceberg lettuce with dressing. Not even any carrot shavings or stale croutons. We met a family who had driven from mid-South Dakota to see a homeopathic doctor in the Twin Cities and were returning the same day. Our 9 hour out-and-back trip seemed easy in comparison (they had a two year old boy with them).
- Highway 212 is a lovely road on which to spend the day. There are towns every 5-10 miles with parks with clean bathrooms/portapotties and very few chain restaurants. Last year, we took Highway 12 and couldn’t find an interesting place to eat. Apparently everyone in fifty miles was attending the Relay for Life fundraiser in Bird Island– the ballroom was swamped with pickup trucks in the town of 1,000.
- Leo declared that he was going to eat all the corn we saw between there and Canada. Peter listened to a bunch of books on tape – “Socks” by Beverly Cleary was the family favorite. The requests for “are we there yet?” never got overwhelming. We took the third carseat out and piled a little cooler (we bought eggs, butter, and some ham in addition to our trunk full of beef) and the boys’ stuff on the seat next to them. I was able to nearly finish a pair of half-done longies because Dan would rather drive than not.
More quick takes here
