Monday, September 9, 2024

Monday in Minnesota: Apple Trees and Meat

 

Our Honeycrisp Apple Tree 
Our Haralson Apple Tree (it was delivered with apples on it)

Supplies for Joe's next project: materials for a 
small retaining wall for the planter box terrace in the backyard.

Eventually our backyard will be a series of terraces with a garden of shrubs, herbs, and flowers. The planter box terrace will probably be the only terrace built this year. It will give Joe something to look forward to for next year. 

Joe enjoys being outside every day. His long-term plan is to have a few hours a week of work to maintain everything, once it is completed. Right now, it is labor intensive. I remind myself that it took him twenty years to get our Woodland property the way he wanted and even then, he would have made changes had we stayed in California. 

Our property here he has more time and money available to get the job done. We had considered having a landscaper do it but the price would have been so much more AND not necessarily allowed him the freedom to change plans in mid-stream. As it was, we outsourced the major parts of tree trimming, tree removal, and the irrigation system. 

My big project for the day was researching, devising, and placing an order of meat from the local shop we visited the other day. The prices are higher than Costco, lower than supermarkets, and reasonable when quality is added into the criteria. I now know what ‘Duroc pork’ and ‘upper 2/3 choice or prime beef’ mean. Dehmer’s Meat Market and Deli will package the order exactly as we want at no extra cost to us. As I cook the meat, I will let you know how it compares to Costco and grocery store meats we have eaten.

Our order will include beef stew meat, ground pork, chicken breasts, cut-up Amish chicken, beef chuck roast, pork Boston butt roast, country style bone-in ribs, and ground beef.  So happy to have an extra freezer in the garage!


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