August is Exhausting

We have been doing so much in August that I'm exhausted! After our excellent trip to see the concert, we got ready to camp back at the pond for the Community Group Campout weekend. It was really nice that a whole bunch of us actually camped there back all weekend this year, instead of going home at night. There were so many people because everyone is having babies! I swear we've tripled the size of the group in just two years with all of the new kids. It was fun seeing all of the new community group babies do what we grew up doing all those years ago.


The biggest adventure of the weekend was roasting a goat. Mike & Will have been talking about eating a goat as long as we've had goats (approximately 2 1/2 years). I have absolutely denied them a taste of any of my goats. So, they found an alternate route to the goat feast they were looking for. They bought the grand champion from the Clinton County 4-H fair and we ate it this weekend. It was quite the adventure! I was in charge of cooking reconnaissance and supervision. The boys did all the hard work. They butchered the goat on Friday night. Then I seasoned the two halves up and put it in the fridge for the next day. All in all I bet hanging weight it was maybe 35 lbs. (note. Much smaller then they lead me to believe, I had lots of extras for seasoning.) I did copious research and came up with some guidelines for cooking it. The most astonishing thing I learned while researching is that goat meat is even healthier than a skinless chicken breast, amazing!! We kept the roaster around 200 degrees and it took about 7 hours. The boys tended it all day and then cut it up for dinner. I seasoned one half with lemon, olive oil, rosemary, garlic, oregano, basil, salt and pepper, very traditional and the other half got a treatment of tomato and Worcestershire. There was much like and dis-like and a great divide between which flavoring was best. I guess I'm glad I did two different ones! I have some adjustments that I would make for the next time, but for a first goat roasting experience... it was a good one. I will say that seasoning such a large hunk of meat is tough work.

I had so many laughs and a fantastic time over the weekend with all of our family and friends. Now we're excited to head out to New Hampshire! Mike & I began packing up last night to go visit Doug, Christy and our new niece Helena!!