Holy Cow!

So this might be the most random and unpleasant post yet, but it's part of the culture here so I just have to include our experience from the weekend. Don't get me wrong, this isn't something that all Brazilians do or do every day, but it's certainly common and normal here What is it? Stock up your freezer with a grass-fed cow. In the States people are always talking about the importance of being more organic, natural, etc. Well here in Brazil it's not hard at all to get as close as you want to be to all-natural food. This weekend we got REALLY close when Jeyson's parents had one of their cows slaughtered. (Warning...pictures of mass amounts of meat ahead!)

The Brauns hired someone to come slaughter the cow (which I did NOT see!), but we then spent 4 hours the next day putting pieces in bags for the freezer.


Here is the hired help cutting up the larger sections into small ones. If this seems unpleasant to you, this is what we see all the time at the butcher anyway when you buy meat! I guess we get desensitized!

Jeyson's mom and brother-in-law bagged

Jeyson's sister labeled

And though there is no picture, Jeyson and I used my Kichenaid mixer grinder attachment to make ground beef. To me, this was the best station since the meat already looked like good, dead meat :) We ground about 45lb of beef! The mixer didn't skip a beat. I seriously think a kitchenaid mixer is a basic, necessary tool for missionaries with all of the from scratch kitchen work we do!

Later the freezer was loaded up...with about 175lb of beef (not even including ribs, etc)! The picture below is not even a fraction of the total!

After the umm...interesting?? day, I realized just how far I've come in life to adapt to my new reality. Maybe in some farm parts in the States this is common, but up until I moved to Brazil, I had always been a city mouse :) God really did a work in my heart for me to adjust to all of the new things we do here! It was quite an experience and the reward for making it through...we now have about 20 lb of good quality beef in our freezer here at home and I'm sure Jeyson's parents will load us up again when we run out. Totally worth the work!