When you buy a quarter of beef, you end up with several packages of soup bones. (And if you ask, the butcher will probably inundate you with a ton more beef bones than you've ever dreamed of, because if nobody takes them he has to pay the renderer to discard them for him.) Now, if you just consider them to be part of the package of beef, they can sit in your freezer alongside the stew cubes, patiently awaiting the day when you'll need to make beef soup. This is a very legitimate way to keep them. Unless... Unless you've had your beef in the freezer for about three months and you're about to have to add half a pig to the freezer as well. Or unless your brother-in-law is butchering 50 chickens next weekend and promised to give you 5 if you come and help with the dirty work. Or unless you just got back from the garden, panicking with the realization that the sweet corn must be harvested now and the new gasket for the pressure canner hasn't arrived in the mail yet