A story for my children

Once upon a time, far, far away in the deep forests of the Boston Mountains there lives a boy and his sister. These two children, lived in the forest like Mowgli of the Jungle. They lived with a small herd of fantastic goats. Yes. Goats. Fantastic Goats. These Fantastic Goats were personable creatures of the wood and happily adopted the young humans as their own kids.

The boy, Adam, and his sister, Sophie, are very talkative and sociable children and soon named the entire herd. Each goat had a special name like, “Peanut”, or “Hacker”. The Fantastic Goats soon grew to adore their children and they spent many long days together. The children climbed the trees that the goats could not and picked the sweetest most suculant leaves for their goats, while the goats neatly trimmed the saplings for the children’s hot dog sticks and fishing poles.

By and by, because Sophie doesn’t like living on hot dogs, the children decided to milk their precious goats. They began to make truffles from chèvre and wild cocoa. Then Sophie got creative and made some Buratta with the Provolone and Chèvre. Adam and Peanut of course wanted iced coffee on the hot summer days after spending long hours swimming in the clear forest rivers. When wild peaches came ripe they all had peaches with milk and honey. But, since summer doesn’t last all year even in the Boston Mountains, the children had to learn to make aged cheese for winter food. Peanut showed them that by wrapping cheese in big leaves or sweet smelling meadow hay, you could flavor aged cheese with the scents of summer. (It also helped protect the cheese from pesky flies.) The Goats loved drinking the sweet whey when the children made cheese. Their favorite cheese was a Gouda style, because there is so much more whey from a washed curd cheese.  Now, in the wild forest there are also dangerous wild pigs. Wild pigs are very strong and destructive creatures. They always dig up the nicest fields and eat all the best persimmons and mulberries. Fantastic Goats absolutely abhor wild pigs! Wild pigs are SO evil they’ve even been known to kill and eat Fantastic Goat kids!!! Adam and Sophie came up with a brilliant and mutually pleasing arrangement with the Fantastic Goats about the wild pigs. The Goats would sacrifice a couple of their lovely horns so the children could make spears with them. Then the children would bait and lure the small pigs with bits of cheese and puddles of whey, and then, well then...the children would have roast pork and bacon to eat with their peaches and coffee each morning. Sophie was a very inventive chef and soon was making all sorts of delicious charcuterie delicacies. Adam, always the better gardener, made lovely side dishes for the meat and cheese. Soon they had a thriving restaurant on the edge of the forest and customers came out of the woodwork for their scrumptious charcuterie boards and lively goat dances.

So, if you ever get lost in the Boston Mountains, stay clear of the wild Pigs and look for the Fantastic Goats. I’m sure they will treat you well and maybe, just maybe, teach you to dance.