God Surprises Us...Again

Do you ever get surprised by God?
I do.
Often.

I won't go into all the details of the situation, but we were going to buy half a beef from a local farmer. Our friend works for this farm and we were going to split one beef and the second beef was for the farmer. We were going to do all the butchering and cutting.
I began to feel like we were being taken advantage of - we were buying this meat, plus doing all the work - and we had not even been told a firm price!
I complained.
I didn't even pray about it.
God surprised me - in mercy.
We found out yesterday that the farmer GAVE us the meat in exchange for the butchering.
I nearly choked on my complaints!

Steven preparing the garage Friday morning for a day of butchering.

It took us most of the day. The steer had been a big one - 1600 lb live weight. Half of that would have been the hide, offal and bones - so we cut up about 800lbs of beef! Graeme and Mitch butchering (one of our friend's four boys - they all came and helped at different times during the day, which was a wonderful help!).

Kind of blurry picture, but this is Graeme trimming roasts.

The second beef was butchered out at Steve's parents' shop on Saturday. They have a meat saw and there were more people to help. Emily was really the only one from our family that helped as there were so many others.

We were able to get our garden planted on Saturday morning. It is also out at Steve's parents' place. I really enjoyed planting. Now that all the children are helping, it goes so fast and isn't half the chore it used to be. I forgot my camera at home, so I didn't get pictures, but later in the day, we went out to pick up the older kids who we had left there.

Emily was helping with the butchering. Steven, Clara and the boys were gopher/blackbird hunting.

The little ones were playing on the swing set...

William hasn't figured out how to slow himself down on the slide - every time he goes down he lands with a resounding "THUNK" on his bottom. It doesn't deter him as he laughs and runs around for another slide. I snapped a picture of him on the way down - anticipating the "THUNK".
We finished up a busy weekend with a quiet wiener roast with Grandpa and Grandma. Then Steven took me out for a few minutes of hunting. I got to try the .17 and I killed several gophers!

What a fun date...sitting side-by-side in the middle of a field - sharing a gun - blasting gophers - keeping a sharp look out over our shoulder for the bull... red-necked romance at it's best! ♥

At least I thing so. ;)

Jenny