Since moving to Boston, I have come to find that, well, it's incredibly weird out here. Contrary to Steven's belief, I hold me tongue about most of them (The word "wicked." The fact that there appears to be no 'r' in my name out here, or people's inability to follow simple cross-walk etiquette. The infuriatingly disorganized grocery stores...seriously, who puts the Crisco in the dressings section? Or the indescribable state of their driving).
However, I just cannot keep my mouth shut about the newest shock I've had. This one would appear to be the most appalling and disgusting difference between my dear Idaho and Massachusetts (by the way, I still can't spell that).
I don't think I fully appreciated all the perks of growing up on a farm. Of course I understand that many people will just never know what it's like to run across the top of the haystack and have your leg fall into a hole. For a split second, you're sure you'll fall straight to the bottom. I never misunderstood those small heart attacks. Some will never know what it's like to peel hay chunks apart with fingers so cold they can barely grip the strings...which is why my dad would find so many littering the fields in the spring. I did not take for granted the chance to watch my mom pull a clumsy lamb out of the frozen water bucket, wrap him in her own coat, lay him down in the front room and use Olivia's medicine syringe to drip milk in his mouth. Don't misunderstand me, I wouldn't be who I am today without those experiences. I did take one thing for granted though...
In our basement, we've always had a big deep freezer that was always full. I see now that we were far more blessed than I ever realized. Snuggled in at the top you'd find little treasured jars of homemade freezer jam--the cloves sticking to the lid. The rare nights my mom wasn't home to make dinner, we'd fish a Totino's Pizza out--still today I'd choose that 99cent pizza over any Regina's Pizzeria dish! It usually held a whole turkey or two that I saw more than once my dad place on another's doorstep. Please just roll over the milk jugs and diet coke bottles filled with opaque liquid--waste not, want not; colostrum is a precious commodity on a farm.
Now, beneath the cheap pizza and bottles of milk, there are stacks of meat. Meat that we raised on our own farm. They're all wrapped in white butcher paper with the blue ink stamped across the top categorizing the beef from the pork. I will always giggle at the memories of each new college roommate awkwardly asking me what the white packages in our freezers were. You honestly have not tasted bacon until you have it fresh from the white wrapper! And this is what brings me back to my original topic of outrageous differences between Idaho and Massachusetts: the price of meat is insane!! I am serious, meat is so expensive! Today I bought a roast, a simple Sunday roast that would sit in the corner of the freezer till all the better meat was used up, and I was shocked that a piece of roast that was 1/4 size the ones my mom would give to me to take back with me to college would cost 13$! I am not a math major, but I'm pretty sure my mom has given me hundreds of dollars in Sunday roasts!
I admit, I took for granted those 23 years of glorious farm-raised meat. I did not realize that my mom and dad spoiled me with so much free food, and what a blessing it was to have that freezer downstairs with the incredibly expensive meat inside and the bag of salt I'd put on top the lid to make sure I was never the one in trouble for leaving the lid open.
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