Eating Bert and Ernie

Although my parents were city folk, my father always dreamed of having a farm. When he retired from his first job, my parents began searching for a farm to buy. They eventually found one and, after fencing off a couple of pastures, bought a small herd of sheep.

They also bought two steers. The idea was to grow the steers over the spring and summer and then send them off to be butchered. They bought two steers so that nobody would know which steer was providing the meat for dinner any particular night. Mother named them Bert and Ernie, although which one was which didn't seem to matter.

Bert and Ernie resided in a pasture that was several acres in size, which was surrounded by a fence that had a couple of shock-wires to keep them in and dogs out. The pasture had a small pond that was fed by an underground source. Every day at four in the afternoon, they were given a bucket of grain. If whoever had the duty of feeding the steers grain was running late, the two steers would stand by the fence where they go their grain and bellow until they were fed.

One day, for a reason I've forgotten, Bert and Ernie escaped their pasture. As we fixed the fence, I wondered aloud where they had gone (I had returned home after military service). Papa told me not to worry, they'd come back. He was right, for a little bit before 4 PM, the two steers walked up the road to the farm and stood by the gate to their pasture. He let them in, they went over to where they were fed and Father gave them their grain. Other than that one escape, they were not any trouble.

Grain was their undoing, for it was a bucket of grain that lured them into the livestock trailer that took them to the slaughterhouse. A few days later, the deep freezer was nearly full of beef wrapped in white paper.

As it turned out, Bert and Ernie were ahead of their time. Grass-fed beef wasn't the rage and most everyone who dined on their meat thought it was too lean. Two steers provided far too much meat for my parents (I had moved out). Bert and Ernie ended up doing community service by appearing on the menu at the local shelter and in the food bank.

They were the only beef my parents ever raised. Raising lambs turned out to be far more manageable, at least in the size of the consumption units.