Oooooooooh, mah back!!

My back feels as though an elephant stomped on it. My shoulders are aching, My hands are chapped, tingling, hot and throbbing.

It was Pick Up The Meat Day. We just finished packing the chest and upright freezer, as well as the two freezers on the two fridges we own.

It’s always an adventure, and I’m beginning to doubt that it will ever become so old hat that we simply burn through it like it’s nothing and then sit around asking each other, do you remember when this was, you know, HARD?

But, two hogs and a steer are now safely put up for the coming year. Everything from ground beef to bacon, prime rib to the Christmas ham – pretty much all the meat we’re going to eat for the next twelve months, crammed into every available niche.

The husband and I do the same thing every year. He takes one look at the overflowing boxes piled up in the back of the van and says, “That will never fit.”

“It will fit,” I reply, confidently – even though inside I’m thinking, crap, he’s probably right…

“Honey,” he says, using the tone that clearly informs me that by ‘honey’ he means ‘stupid,’ “You have x-many cubic feet in those freezers, and they are already y-full. And this is clearly z-many more and y + z = x to the power of a zillion. It will never fit.”

“Pfffft,” I shrug at him. “It’ll fit. You’ll see.”

And now it is a matter of pride, people. it WILL fit.

And somehow, thus far, I have managed to pull it off. I have found ways to turn z-many cubic feet of meat into x-minus-y-many.

And then he tells me he is amazed and that I am amazing.

And all I can think is, I can’t believe I pulled that off AGAIN.

I’ll try to take some pictures tomorrow, when it isn’t DARK out there. Assuming I can stand up tomorrow. Because the way my back feels right now, I’m thinking I may need to stay in bed for a few days. Or weeks. Possibly the rest of my life.

…this may be a hint that I should rethink that idea I had about retraining to be a cowboy…