Well, we're back from Sid Richardson Ranch and it was an interesting week. Ben finished 4 merit badge, got partials on 2 others, completed a mile swim and mostly had fun. They had some staffing problems, the cook got fired, and Ben's scoutmaster stepped up and ran the kitchen for the week. I ran up to help with some of the cooking on Thursday and Friday.

Yes, that's us with 250 pounds of brisket we smoked. It took 5 hours to slice and the scrap made 25 pounds of chopped.  It's interesting to see the staff up close: the ratio of girls from Venture units to guys is much higher than the ratio in camp. We had exactly one female venture scout in the swimming classes I watched with 2 female instructors. That was still enough to have problems with the one Muslim troop, whose scouts apparently mocked the other faiths present.  I missed most of the details, just hearing what the staff discussed in the kitchen when they worked the table, so I don't know how that shook out.  The excellent of the area's Aquatics School was reflexed in the water program and nature seemed solid, but the crafts were worrisome weak. In general, I was less impressed with the scouts this year than in the past. A whole lot of people this year didn't seem to think of the Scout Oath and Law as meaningful or they missed parts of it. The number of people who offer to help in the kitchen outside of our troop was zero. On the other side, you had people who more than went a extra mile or 2 when it was needed.  I'm still very happy with the troop the boys landed in...

I ate pork tonight. Chicken tomorrow. I don't think I want to see cow for a bit.