Where's the Canadian beef, eh? Part 1: Meet the ranchers

Over the last few weeks I've found myself reminiscing about my childhood and some of my early impressions of Canadian beef ranchers.  Growing up in small-town, rural Ontario in a community just outside of Newtonville, I spent many a weekend playing at the Cartwright Farm.  My brother Josh and I would spend hours playing on the farm with the Cartwright kids and every once in a while would find ourselves helping Mr. John Cartwright with a few of his daily 'chores'.

[caption id="attachment_10095" align="alignright" width="324"] Meet the Beef Experts: BC Ranchers are awesome people! (above pictures care of @ julienowell and @ eschelle) [/caption]

As kids, we never really appreciated all the work Mr. Cartwright did each day.  On sleepovers no alarm was ever needed to wake us to catch Saturday morning cartoons, instead we'd be awoken by the thud of John's muddy boots hitting the mud-room floor.  He'd already been up for hours getting an early start on all the responsibilities that comes with raising beef-cattle.

Meet the Rancher

Memories of the Cartwright's farm flooded my mind last weekend while the annual " Meet a Rancher " event took place.  Twenty Overwaitea Food Group (Save-on Foods) locations hosted five BC Ranchers ' families representing the BC Cattlemen 's association.  Each family came ready with displays depicting their family ranch and a series of informational hand-outs about beef and the industry, as well as recipe books.  The families were happy to interact with shoppers and provided answers to questions about what they do, how they care for and raise their animals, and their stewardship actions to take care of our precious environment.

Search out the hashtag #LoveCDNBeef on Twitter and Facebook and you'll see a common theme kept popping up: " BC Ranchers ranch with passion ".  The Cartwrights and the BC ranchers from last weekend's "Meet a Rancher" event come from the same cloth.  Their passion for what they do and how they live their trade is self-eminent with a common trait they share...

... I don't ever remember seeing John without a smile on his face and a bounce in his step (muddy boots and all).  If that's not living with passion, I don't know what is.

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"Where's the Canadian Beef, eh?" Part 2: What you didn't know Stay tuned for later this week when I give answers to many of the questions YOU asked of Canadian ranchers and CanadianBeef.org while on my "behind the beef" tour (if you missed the questions, check them out here ).

 

Pictures tell a 1,000 words

Below are a few pictures from my " behind the beef " tour with Canadian Beef and " Meet the Beef Experts ".  However for a few more pictures from other bloggers and Lower Mainland consumers, be sure to check out the Meet BC Ranchers pinterest board , too.

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“Just so you know, I have been compensated to share my ideas on this topic. Sometimes it is in the form of products, or services or even money… But here’s the thing; I won’t  share anything with you that I don’t fully support. It doesn’t matter what it is, or how much they are willing to give me, if I don’t believe in it, It won’t be on my site. Seriously. You’ll just have to trust me on this.” ~ Moose

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Check out part 2 of this post: " Where's the Canadian beef, eh? Part 2: What you didn't know "