"You have milk that comes from a cow?!!!"

It's probable her friend knows milk comes from cows. Was funny how they said it though. It still brings up the point that somebody can be amazed we have a cow when a hundred years ago it was the norm. They call it progress.

At work, I break out a mason jar of fresh milk to go with lunch, and if there's a new guy, they get that look Cornhusker described. Start grilling me on how I got it, whether it's pasteurized, will I get sick, etc. One guy who moved up from Los Angeles and has been there a year still expresses concern for my health, though I haven't been sick a day.

One day I had milk in a jug and someone wasn't looking and thought it was water and took a swig. When he realized it was my milk, spit it out and went into gagging convulsions fearing for his life.

We are new to farming and have five pigs out in the barn right now, and are planning to do meat birds, we have layers, and will be getting dairy goats. My ds 13 at first said that no, she will not eat the home grown meat. Now she only asks that when we do have the meat, that her girlfriends not be informed of the source of the meat when they come to dinner! That's real progress!

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Hey, a friend of my moms said that she would never eat beef from a cow....her hamburger came from "hamburger plants"!! True story.

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"Remember, no man is a failure, who has friends" -Clarence

When I had a farm, I took my sows to a friend's boar (until I got tired of that and got my own). They had a farmstand set up along the road, in back of which was the field where the breeding took place. The look on the faces of the city folk when the hogs got horny was something to behold.

When my husband's middle nephew was about 10, he came for a visit with my husband's parents. I took him to the barn with me one morning to "help" with chores and taught him how to milk one of the calmer goats. When the stream hit his leg instead of the bucket, he looked at me with this shocked expression and said, "IT'S WARM." All he'd ever known was cold milk from the grocery store.

My neighbor, a born and bred farm boy, and his son wanted to see the goats and our Pyrs on snowy day when they had helped me get through a snow drift and into my own driveway. When one of the goats stood on the fence to be petted, this neighbor was amazed to see that goats had 2 teats and pointed them out to his son. I wasn't too surprised since he'd always had cattle but I nearly lost it when he asked if we'd removed the extra two. It's so hard to keep a straight face when someone who should know better asks such a question.

very interesting thread. We have had people around when we milk a fresh cow. The milk is a little bloody. THere have been people ask if it is strawberry milk.

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My college roommate/maid of honor would come visit us and refuse to drink goat milk. Would not even taste it, yet this same woman loves oysters on the half shell. Go figure.

Reminds me of my older brother--when we were young, he asked my mom why they called the chicken we ate and the chickens that are birds the same thing. He had no idea that the packaged chicken from the store WAS the bird. I think a lot of adults now may acknowledge the fact that they are the same but don't really think about it too much. I'm surprised how many meat-eaters I've come across who don't like the idea of hunting, I mean, how could I possibly kill an animal . Anyway, it's funny, but not terribly surprising.

There is an annual "kids Day on the Farm" in our county for all the second graders because even though this is still basically a rural area, most kids have no idea where their food comes from...

They get to milk a goat, see a cow milked, see beef cattle, see sheep get sheared, see all shapes, sizes, and ages of chicks and more...

We sell "farm fresh eggs from happy chickens" and we had one woman tell us that she wouldn't eat an egg from our farm "because it came from a chicken's butt...." Guess the ones in stores just grow in those neat little cartons!

my BIL was in his upper 30's when he exclaimed to my sister - "hey look, this pickle looks just like a tiny cucumber" we laughed and laughed, he thought people grew pickles in their garden !

I think its time they started teaching some kind of agriculture in schools again...even in the large cities

This thread reminds me of a episode of Gilligan's Island when the rich lady said she had seen sugar beets in their natural environment... the grocery store.

Wait until you tell her where Jello comes from.............

Unpasteurized milk can carry TB and other pathogens. So I don't buy raw milk from the store.

If I had local friends who were not a commercial dairy but had their own milk cow, and I knew the cow and its health, then I'd be quite grateful to have a swig of 'the real thing'.

Of course not. They come from Eggplants.

Well now I am gladder that my kids know where things come from and that they are better when not from a store. My ds 10 today said he liked raw milk better, and he was drinking organic milk.
Raw milk is more alive.
They want to help me if we do chickens next year. They know good food when they see it.
On another note, I was shocked to hear a lady on TV say that some people think natural ingredients have less flavor. What flavor are they missing?? Chemicals? Pesticides? Organic stuff is sooooo much better.

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A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
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Sometimes it goes the other way too! When my youngest was 3 we took the preschool to the zoo in the city. They were facinated with tigers and elephants and such....... The petting zoo was a big ho-hum to them. They all had cows and pigs and chickens at home.......
It was spring, and as we passed the llamas, they were doing what llamas do in the spring. A little voice pipes up "Why is that llama climbing on the other one?" Before any of the adults could say anything, another little voice pipes up "they're just making babies like my daddy's cows do!" "Oh.OK." says the first kid. The other Moms and I nearly strangled ourselves trying not to laugh!

I understand your concern. However, I think we’ve overdone the fearmongering on disease. What is the incidence of TB from cows? Pretty rare in the U.S. Correct me if I’m wrong.

I am one who spent a decade in an earlier life as a public health officer trying to scare people about “pathogens”. Now I realize we’ve gone too far. We’ve created kids who see nothing but concrete, sheetrock, carpet, and lawns. Too sterile – now they’re saying lack of exposure to bugs is causing problems (allergies/asthma, etc).

While people freak out over killer raw milk, the biggest health threat we face is lack of something to do. Sedentary life, junk food, partially solved by growing your own.

We need dirtier kids.

This thread struck me as funny at first.......then it made me sad......and then I got angry.

I chuckled at how naive some people are........then I realized how little I knew about this stuff growing up......and know I think about how much our government is trying to create a nanny state and it burns me up.

Kind of a sad thread really. Sometimes I weep for the future.

I am so glad "homesteaders" like all of you exist. I appreciate all you guys. You give me hope.

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I do this in my own home daycare. "My" kids know where their food comes from as we often have discussions about it at the lunch table. We plant a garden, weed it and harvest it. We collect eggs from our birds, they know some of the rabbits and turkeys are ours to eat. Unfortunately, due to regulations, I cannot feed them any of it unless it has been USDA inspected! Like that stuff is sooo much safer! We just had a discussion last week on where the milk comes from on a cow (due to the stupid movie "Barnyard"). I flipped over our female dog, a rabbit doe and informed them that people mommies can have milk too. It was quite the discussion We also hatch eggs each spring and I candle the eggs with the kids so they can see the progress of the babies. They have also learned that not all eggs hatch and sometimes babies die. The parents have all told me how wonderful it is that the kids are learning all this. I do wish this type of thing would be taught in the grade schools. I think it is very sad that the kids don't know that beef is from a cow, pork a pig and so on.....
Melissa