The day finally came for us to go pick up Gus Gus. ( Oh, we did finally get a freezer to put Gus Gus in. We got it from Lowe's, which I hate, but that's another blog.) What a crappy day it was too! It had to rain but of course its rained everyday for the last month it seems. Anyway, so the morning started by getting up at 6:30 so we could get ready to go eat breakfast with my parents and get Gus. So, my dad wanted to eat at Jacks, mainly because that is the only place to eat breakfast at in Odenville. As we are on our way, he calls and says, never mind we are going to eat and Bowling's. Which never crossed my mind because when they moved out there it was like they disappeared really. Never mind the fact that when they were in Moody I ate there every morning of my Senior year in high school. (During that time they were called Shaw's.) Ummmm...Hashbrown Special! Ok sorry, I think I kinda drooled on myself there. Anyway, so it has and always will be the "local Moody government official" hang out joint. The same 5 or 6 men are there every Saturday at 7 am. Which include, a previous mayor and the current sheriff of St Clair Co. Of course, my dad knows them all. So we eat and I reminisce with a plate full of hashbrowns and talk to a girl I graduated with. Her parents own the place and she works there. After that we are on the road again. Oh,
Side Note: My dad had to tell everybody we talked to that we were "headed up to Dollar's to pick up a cow". They were all intrigued. So, back on highway 411. Deep in the heart of Odenville, AL. Which, by the way, is only 10 mins from our house. Of course, we are passing the usual trailers and run down houses. As we approach our destination, I wanted to scream " NO! YOUR GOING THE WRONG WAY! YOUR GOING THE WRONG WAY!!" (A line from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the one will Jessica Biel) It literally looks like a scene from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Picture an old run down wood shed type thing. There was one we drove past. Oh, before that there is an old sign, you know the one with the lighted arrow at the top, that sits right off 411. It says Dollar's Sausage and something else through the moldy plastic that covered it. So anyway driving up to the place where they do the processing, we pass a shed with many old rusty things in it. Then we come to this building on one side it has this rusty metal fence. Kinda like what you would see at a rodeo. I assume this is where they keep the cows before they are put through the processing part. Then as you look across the building looks like a metal version of the shed we passed before. When we pulled up I told Zac, "I'm not going in there" He laughed. "No really, I'm serious. I'll just stand out here in the rain" So we all get out.
Side Note: My dad had surgery on his foot a few weeks ago and is on crutches. Obviously, with my dad on crutches I have to help load up Gus. As we walk in I just know I'm going to see dead cow parts everywhere and its going to smell like rotting meat. To my surprise I did not see cow parts but it did smell funny. I guess you just can't get that smell out though. They already had him frozen so all we had to do was put him in the boxes. We loaded up 11 boxes of meat. Our part of Gus was 317 lbs. Roughly, that comes out to .50 per pound for what it cost to have the meat processed. Not too shabby.
We get home and unload Gus into the freezer. When we first got the freezer I was super stoked because I thought "now we can buy in bulk!"and have a place to keep it. Wrong! Gus takes up the entire freezer but we will have plenty to eat. So, as my cow story comes to an end, I'll leave you with some pictures of our first Gus Gus meal. Spaghetti! It was really good too!!
