In my last post, I left you at the train station, but my girl's day out wasn't over quite so soon. Mom and Maggie brought me home for supper...and to ooh and aah over their dwarf apple tree.

I can't remember the exact dates, but I'm guessing this tree has been in the ground for only three years. It's trained as a natural-form espalier, and due to the city location (pavement holds heat), late spring freezes don't harm the blooms. You can see the result...a tree dripping with apples even after about a dozen fruits have been harvested. I'm green with envy!

The other excitement major enough to keep me away from my milking for an extra half hour was tasting Lamb Chop's first culinary debut. I brought Maggie a pound of ground goat meat the morning of our adventure, and while Mom and I were on the train, Maggie was cooking up a storm. The result was so delectable that I thawed out some chops, marinated them, and cooked them up for me and Mark the next day.

The consensus is that 3.75-month-old goat tastes every bit as good as lamb...possibly even better. There's no gamy flavor (although the meat is very slightly tougher than lamb) and the fat-to-meat ratio is the best of all the pastured meats we've tried so far (purchased lamb and beef and hunted venison).

As for cost --- the $55 we paid to the slaughterhouse was very much worth it. We ended up with 26 pounds of goat meat (which I think includes the weight of the bones I requested to have returned to me for broth-making), and the thinly sliced steaks and ground meat will definitely making cooking with our homegrown chevon much easier. Considering that we've been willing to pay top dollar for pastured lamb in the past, the slaughterhouse fee is quite acceptable for meat that is otherwise nearly free. Suddenly, I'm wishing Abigail had popped out two kids instead of one, and I'm looking forward to an even larger goat harvest next summer.

Finally, I should end by mentioning that there doesn't seem to be a perfect age for harvesting goats for meat. A quick search of the internet turns up dates ranging from two months to two years, with the data that growth starts to slow (meaning the meat gets much tougher and feed costs rise if you're purchasing food) at an age of about five to six months. So, even if Lamb Chop hadn't been making my life more difficult, butchering him at four months was probably a relatively good idea.

And, despite my angst at the time, I haven't experienced a single qualm as we gorge on our first buckling's meat. Instead, I fall more and more in love with our caprine homestead addition every day. The only real question is --- which is the most valuable goat product? Milk, manure, or meat?