OFN August 9, 2021

just a

thought

PO Box 1514, Lebanon, MO 65536

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What’s On Your Mind, Ozarks?

Life Is Simple

A

By Jerry Crownover

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e f i L elpmiS si

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gricultural news became consumer news revonwpounds orC yrreof J yB last week, when 25 million hamburger meat were recalled by one of the nation’s largest meat processors. The Jerry Crownover is meat was recalled because of possible a farmer and former contamination by a potentially, deadly bacteria. Being professor of Agriculture a consumer, as well as a producer of beef, I felt good Education at Missouri that our system of food inspection had caught this State University. He is a problem before the masses became sick. But, I couldn’t native of Baxter County, help wondering why I didn’t die as a child. Arkansas, and an Every Sunday morning of my childhood, Dad or Mom author and professional would go to the chicken house and catch the noon speaker. To contact Jerry, meal. They would take the chicken to the old block of go to ozarksfn.com and wood (that was stained with the blood of hundreds of click on ‘Contact Us.’ Sunday meals before), take a rusty ax, and chop off the head of the fowl. The headless chicken would then flop around on the dirty ground for a few seconds before it was plucked, gutted, and cut up to fry. It was good. There was also the annual autumn ritual of hog-killin’. Friends and neighbors would gather at our farm to insure the winter’s meat supply by processing a couple of 250-pound hogs. The sanitary processing included scalding the carcass in a rusty, 55-gallon barrel (that probably once contained something poisonous), laying the carcass on some old wooden planks in order to cut it up with that same rusty ax and an old handsaw that Dad retained just for this job. There had to be some bacteria somewhere, but it was delicious. I’ve been inside modern meat processing plants. There is absolutely no comparison between them and the primitive ways we used to handle meat. Today’s meat plants are

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Eric Tietze Publisher

Administrative Amanda Newell, Marketing Manager Eric Tietze, Accounting Advertising Pete Boaz, Display & Classified Sales Amanda Newell, Production Sales Circulation Eric Tietze, Circulation

Editorial Julie Turner-Crawford, Managing Editor Jerry Crownover, Columnist Jody Harris, Columnist Production Amanda Newell, Production Contributors

Jessica Allan, Larry Burchfield, Erin Harvey, Kaylea Hutson-Miller, Ken Knies, Chad Pittillo and Terry Ropp

About the Cover Daniel Potter became the George’s cattle division manager in 2020, managing the herd and the land. See more on page 14. Photo by Terry Ropp

Ozarks Farm & Neighbor accepts story suggestions from readers. Story information appears as gathered from interviewees. Ozarks Farm & Neighbor assumes no responsibility for the credibility of statements made by interviewees. © Copyright Ozarks Farm & Neighbor, Inc., 2021. All rights reserved. Printed in USA.

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