It's December, time for winter to start. The geese decided that this week at any rate, and are grouping up, and heading south. Let's see what else is going on, on the T Bar J. You might want to get something to drink and sit a spell.

Life on the Ranch:
We are getting water tanks ready for winter, feed in for the steers that we weaned, and the cow bunch moved to a different pasture.

Moved the cows over on Rattlesnake Butte. Now that hunting season is over, big game ended last Sunday. We border the Fish, Wildlife and Parks land and it is just better if our cows are out of the area during hunting season.

It is also a place where the snakes den up for the winter. In the fall they are moving that direction, by now they have all arrived and we won't see them til about the end of May.

It was a 3 mile walk for the herd to get there. Half of the bulls were leading the way, the other half was looking for their couch and TV. But they all made it in good fashion, even the heifer calves.

Surprised the deer back there, but they will be glad to have some water closer by since the tank is filled up now. I don't know where the antelope go, but when it snows they disappear. The deer and the sharp-tail grouse show up.

We started feeding alfalfa hay every 3rd day to the cows to keep their protein intake where it needs to be. Our winter grass has about 5% protein and the cows need a diet of 9%. Alfalfa hay is too rich for beef cattle on it's own, it averages about 15%, so over the course of a week we can balance it out with the right amount of hay.

That is probably more than you wanted to know about a cow's diet, but there you go.

The steers are looking good. They get their protein pellets and hay at home. They aren't missing their mother anymore and have started to settle in to their routine. Eat, Sleep and repeat.

Glad You Stopped by
Every Friday I send out what is happening at the ranch. There are many days, all Al and I get to talk to is each other, or the cows, so I enjoy my Friday email to our T Bar J family. Hope you enjoy learning about what happens here and be sure and ask a question or two if you have one.

I thought I would include the link to the story Abundant Montana did on our ranch last fall, in case you missed it earlier.

https://abundantmontana.com/t-bar-j-ranch-blog/

Beef for Your Summer BarBQ
The 2 Prime Ribs and 1 Brisket are given away that we drew for in November.
Our Beef shares for the winter are spoken for.

We are taking deposits for shares for June and July delivery. That is when our steers we weaned last month will be finished growing.

That is our main delivery timeframe.

The later born steers are the ones finished in the fall and early winter.

So if you are wanting Ribeyes to BarBQ, or a brisket to smoke, or sirloin steaks to make shish ka bobs, hamburger to have the best party on the block, Tenderloins off the grill or a flank steak. Now is the time to line that up.

You would make your deposit now, and we will hold you a share, and then in June you make the final payment and we will get your beef to you.

Just so you are aware, half of the steers are spoken for already and we do sell out of these too.

We do have Ground Beef bundles available now while they last. If you want hamburger for winter meals.

Here is the link to get you to the shares and ground beef bundle if you want to look at those options.

https://tbarjranchbeef.com/collections/all

Speaking of Ground Beef:
I was trying to think of what to do for you for Christmas.

It is a busy time of year and if you had some ranch wife cooking tips it just might prove helpful.

We will call it "Home on the Range, Cooking on the T Bar J".

It will be a weekly installment until I get the recipes grouped up in an organized fashion and can send you a link to the recipe book.

And since we have ground beef available, that is where I will start.

With Healthy Holiday Hamburger recipes and tips.

The #1 ranch wife tip for fast, healthy, easy meals is to have cooked hamburger in the freezer.

So get out your roaster pan, put 3-4 packages of frozen ground beef in it, put on the lid, and put it in the oven for 3 hours or so at 275 degrees.

When it is has just a little pink inside, it is done, very little pink, but you do not want to over cook it.

Take it out and make spaghetti for supper with a jar of spaghetti sauce, cooked spaghetti noodles or ravioli, lettuce salad or green beans, and slice up some French bread.

Get out 3 containers and put crumbled ground beef in each one. When they are cool, put on the lid, write on the top so you know what it is, and put them in the freezer.

A freezer is more than a place for raw frozen meat. You can have a whole meal frozen and ready to go on short notice. Even dessert!

The point being you want to cook for more than just 1 meal when you spend time in the kitchen cooking. Make meat for 3 or 4 meals and cook up extra spaghetti noodles too. They are easy to thaw in a bowl of hot water.

If you have frozen ground beef in the freezer you can make: tacos, sloppy joes, hamburger stew, stroganoff, stuffed peppers, chili, macaroni and cheese with beef, pizza. All sorts of things.

When you thaw ground beef do extra as well. Make 2 meatloafs and freeze one. Make a double batch of Swedish meatballs, or porcupine balls, make hamburgers for the grill and freeze some of those. Make hamburger patties you cook on the stove with gravy.

There are so many ways to cook hamburger, why don't you send me your favorite. We will include them in the Home on the Range cookbook.

Kieran McKeag Update:
Our very own T Bar J Ranch hammerthrower, Kieran, has a competition this month. I will keep you posted on how it turns out. We are expecting great results with Beef fueling his training.