Woodchuck for Dinner

Our oldest son had been noticing some woodchuck damage and decided to do something about it.  Last year we had such an infestation of various rodents so he wanted to make sure he had an early start.

He caught one on the first day after setting his auction buy trap.

I knew then that I would have to "adjust" our weekly menu.

All the boys have been waiting to eat woodchuck (or groundhog - but the word groundhog makes me bitter because he said that it would be an early spring and it is supposed to SNOW this weekend.).  Friends I shall leave unmentioned (but drive a blue bus because their family is so large - 16 kiddos from one mama and one daddy and only one set of twins) had assured our boys it was tasty.

As they are known as being tricksters, I was slightly leery.

The school called as S1 was headed back to the house withe the rodent and I had to run in to get S2, who was feeling sickly.  I was so in shock over the fact that I was actually going to be making woodchuck for dinner that I had to share this information with the school secretary.  Oddly, she didn't seem shocked.  I think this should concern me.  

S2 arrived home to watch S1 cut up the meat.  I was quite thankful that crock pot liners have been invented because they were surely being used on this meal.

We had been told that cream of mushroom soup would make the meat more tender, so we added that as well.  

It wasn't looking very tasty.

However, every single time I get a chicken ready to bake I swear I am not eating one because I think they look so disgusting but I keep making them for dinner and we keep eating them.  So I wasn't so quick to judge.

The longer it cooked, well, it didn't smell very good either.  We kept waiting for a good cooking scent, but it never happened.

When I drove into our little hometown to pick up yet another sick boy (it's been a rough week, but we can't blame the woodchuck, it hadn't been eaten yet), I stopped to talk to Alicia at my amazing work place, the heart of our town, the library.

"There's a woodchuck in my crock pot," I told her.

"What?" she spit out.

I repeated what I said.  "That's what I thought you said but I didn't want to believe you," she answered, shaking her head.

When I arrived home, the woodchuck wasn't smelling any better.

I started frying bacon.  Bacon always smells wonderful. Waffles and bacon had never sounded so delicious for dinner.

The meat cooked up dark, nearly black.  My husband began to get a little hopeful. "Bear meat is black and it is some good eating," he told us.  He began dreaming up plans if it tasted as good as prime rib and how we would raise the woodchucks, becoming a woodchuck farm, hitting the jackpot on an untaped market and the recipes I could sell and the money we could make.

All the boys started asking for me to make them a waffle.

But S1, bless his heart, cut up pieces for everyone and was sure that with Sweet Baby Ray's, anything can be tasty.

He was mistaken.

"All this hard work for it to taste this bad!" he moaned dejectedly. 

And it was bad bad.  So bad that when they cleared the table, they wouldn't even give the leftovers to the chickens.  That is bad, folks.

I was ever so thankful for that crock pot liner!

S1 emailed the Visser's the people who told us it would taste good, and they told us you have to boil woodchuck first and then cook it.

It's going to take a little while to get over this, but I am pretty sure that we are going to be trying this meal again.

Lucky us.

I would like to add that days later, they are still bemoaning the fact the woodchuck tasted so tough and terrible.  My husband still laments, "If it only it had tasted good, think of the money we could have made!"

This, people, is my life.

I cannot make it up.