Get the new shed built, so the state can see economic growth.....Nope that other statement pretty much describes me too
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Old Pharts Club
- Thread starter The Cromwell
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But animals are so cute, loving, etc, etc......AND costly.......
It would seem they're costly, at first glance, but consider that *most* of the time (not always, but most) we don't have to buy a lot of things from the store that are quite expensive. For example, milk.. Sure you can buy crap pasteurized/homogonized milk with altered proteins and god-knows-what-else added to it (I don't like to think about it), but I go out in the morning and bring back a couple-three gallons of fresh, organic, unfussed-with milk that still has all its nutrients AND vitamins (which pasteurizing destroys) and it's a healthy food. From that I also make cheeses of all kinds, butter, things like sour cream and cream cheese, etc., all organic and natural. Nobody touched it but me. Then there's all that poop that composts down to the most beautiful black, soft, nutrient dense soil you could imagine, and THAT is also organic. The cows get nothing but grass and hay, so there's nothing coming through in their poop which turns to compost, which in turn fertilizes our garden, so our vegetables are clean and organic. All these things cost big bucks in a store, and to my knowledge, there ARE no stores anywhere in this area that cater to "real food" like we can get from our back yard. And I haven't even mentioned all the grass-fed organic beef yet. We have about a 1,600 to 1,800 pound steer walking around out there that needs to go to freezer camp as soon as we can afford it, but what we get back is literally THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of dollars worth of beef, if we were paying for organic, grass-fed beef that is, and not the pasty cardboard crap you buy in a store. It's the quality of the food that matters to us, and that's worth the (comparatively) small cost we put into it. I actually did a cost analysis one year and we came out $4,000 ahead if we bought everything from Wal-Mart that we produce here, and $10,000 ahead if we could find the equivalent organic/grass fed meat, milk, and eggs. Eggs... yeah, we run a retirement home for chickens here, so we do end up paying more for eggs, because these old hens just don't lay as much anymore, but every now and then we get a batch of chicks and some of them are girls, so our flock is stable. Not as productive as someone who replaces all their hens every year, but it's OK.
So yeah, there's a lot more to it than just how much the hay costs every year.
The cows can support a lot of other creatures, us included, and all they ask for in return is a scratch and a pat, and a nice patch of grass or hay to munch on. Cows are the universal mothers of the universe. Great, that's exactly the stuff the vet is sending for the kittens. Well, at least they'll only be getting it for five days.
Good to see ya even if only occasionally.
I need to add a couple points to Lannie's cow post that she left out. I once did a thorough cost analysis of what we paid for fresh cow's milk and, factoring in everything, even including things like the pitifully small amount of electricity to do laundry on cow towels, etc., came up with about $20/gallon for raw milk. If you can even find it at any store or farmers' market, it costs about $15-20 per half gallon retail, not including your gas and time to go get it. But here's the big selling point for me on cows and drinking their fresh raw milk: cows have an abnormally high resistance to just about every bug that passes through your area, and if that bug does infect them, their system develops an immunity in about one day (assuming the cow is otherwise healthy), and if you then drink their milk, you get those antibodies for free... in other words, your cow can keep YOU healthy.
Another point: You all know that cows only give milk after they have given birth (and a year or so after the fact). We have been playing his cow game now for.... ummmm... 12 years? And we get them bred every year. Note that we do not have dozens of cows wandering around here, so where did all those babies go? We keep a bull baby (then steered) every 3-4 years for meat (Lannie mentioned that huge cost savings). The rest we sell, either for cash at the livestock auction or traded to our hay man. Depending on current market value, this pays for about a third to half the hay bill each year, so the cost just went down another notch.
Bottom line is, even though I bitch a lot about the labor, we really are saving money by having these critters.
Another point: You all know that cows only give milk after they have given birth (and a year or so after the fact). We have been playing his cow game now for.... ummmm... 12 years? And we get them bred every year. Note that we do not have dozens of cows wandering around here, so where did all those babies go? We keep a bull baby (then steered) every 3-4 years for meat (Lannie mentioned that huge cost savings). The rest we sell, either for cash at the livestock auction or traded to our hay man. Depending on current market value, this pays for about a third to half the hay bill each year, so the cost just went down another notch.
Bottom line is, even though I bitch a lot about the labor, we really are saving money by having these critters.
I wish we could get fresh milk from a cow but none of the people around here will sale it because they say it's against the law to sale it without it being pasurized
That started nearly a hundred years ago, when milk profiteers mixed water in the milk to make it go farther, then found some of their employees were using mud puddle water and the result (to make a really long story short) was that people got bacterial infections from drinking that milk, so the government demanded pasteurization (cooking) to kill any bugs in the milk, but that also kills all the good stuff, then synthetic shit is added back in. No one seems to care that, if the cow is healthy and the farmer handles it properly, there is nothing bad in there and it is all good. But can you trust the farmer? The government says "no," so they demand a process that turns good healthy milk into white water so everyone makes a profit with no chance you will get sick. If you are ever at my house, you can have a glass of real milk and I guarantee you won't get sick.
Could you send us some
No way to get it there without a refrigerated package ($$$). Have you tried physically going to a local dairy -- a small one -- and asking them if you can buy some? Some of them require you to claim you will pasteurize it before use or that it will be used only to feed your livestock (they might even label the container "not for human consumption") as a way of getting around the pasteurization requirements. Dairies typically do not sell retail. They wholesale the milk (in tanker trucks) to a processor, who does the pasteurization and homogenization processes, then they take it to the stores. Which is why most of the milk ads you see on TV about a particular brand of milk being this or that are lies because the dairy farmer has nothing to do with the final product.
The last time I had any real unspoiled milk was back in the 70s, when the dairies let people drink it. Government regulations fouled that up.
I was raised on Jersey cow milk. did not care much for it though.
I prefer to eat butter and drink milk.
Like 2% much better.
It's an alien thing I suppose....
I prefer to eat butter and drink milk.
Like 2% much better.
It's an alien thing I suppose....
I never buy 2%. It's either buttermilk, or whole milk. I can't stand that reduced fat white water. Even with buttermilk, I get the thickest I can get my hands on. To me, driniking milk is like vaping. If I can't get the flavor, something is wrong.
Buttermilk is horrid stuff!
Bulgarian style is the best kind of buttermilk
or maybe a bit less horrid to me?Bulgarian style is the best kind of buttermilk
buttermilk is only useful for making cakes, biscuits, pancakes, etc.
Mmmmmmmaximum milkfat.
I hate buttermilk
Well, there's buttermilk and there's buttermilk. The stuff at the store is pasteurized whole milk (white water) with some butterfat floating in it. The stuff Lannie makes? Well, you take the pure cream off our milk and put it in the butter churn. Half of it turns into a yellow lump (butter) and what liquid that is left is poured into a quart jar and handed to me.... yummy!
Hiya Dale! Wutsup?
If you didn't work it off, you'd prolly weigh 300+ lbs....
Nadda this evening, just finished working about an hr ago....wanted to finish tonight so I'm NOT doing anything bizarre tomorrow....
Good for her, it's so simple to make, and tastes much better than store bought sweet shit, although you can add as much sweetener as you like.
I once weighed 360 pounds and I did not drink buttermilk. Now I do and I'm around 200 (got down to 173 but that was way too skinny).If you didn't work it off, you'd prolly weigh 300+ lbs....
Prolly why suspenders are in your near future....
Depending how tall you are, and fat versus muscle distribution.
After all these years, I am only 15 pounds over my high school weight.
I've weighed the same for 40 yrs, just that one pancreas issue, which I solved on my own. If I would of listened to the doctors, i'd be dead.
You mean because I have no ass and my pants keep trying to fall off?Prolly why suspenders are in your near future....
Well, there's more to it than that. Like back then, I had a desk job and a British wife who piled my dinner plate high each night and thought I didn't love her if I didn't ask for seconds. I was 6'2" tall then, but because of .... what's that dang doctor call it?.... Extreme Degenerative Disc Disease... my spine is compressed and I last measured in at 5'9", but I cheated and stretched myself up until it hurt and got 5'10", so whether you say lost 4 or 5 inches... wait, I almost forgot (old age)... at 19 years old, the USAF measured me at 6'3", so I guess my spine has squished down a total of 6".
At graduation, I was 242, so I am 40 pounds less than high school today.
I was 5' 11" back then, and 160. I shrunk an inch so far. Still tall for a woman, but still slender compared to most my age.
When I started my job I weighed 270 now I weigh 203 lost 67lbs in 3 years
If she does, I am unaware, but lets tag her @Lannie so she doesn't miss this and can answer herself in the morning (Sleeping Beauty is cutting the ZZZZzzzs at he moment).
She has a couple hundred bottles of mixes in the cupboard and I don't have a clue what any of them might be....
Was just thinking about a Melon vape today, never tired one.
I have eaten melons at breakfast and salady things on hot afternoons, but never sucked one up my nose.
But now I am putting my tired old ass in bed and will probably have nightmares about a melon up my nose......
Yak mo' tomorrow.
But now I am putting my tired old ass in bed and will probably have nightmares about a melon up my nose......
Yak mo' tomorrow.
Have a good one...!I have eaten melons at breakfast and salady things on hot afternoons, but never sucked one up my nose.
But now I am putting my tired old ass in bed and will probably have nightmares about a melon up my nose......
Yak mo' tomorrow.
That is the kind of buttermilk I learned early on to hate.
Jersey Milk.
Dale, I have a Monster Melon clone recipe, but I haven't made it in a couple years and I don't remember it off the top of my head. I'll try to remember to find it and send it on to you. I don't think it had any creamy flavors, but you can tweak it as you like.
And there seems to be some confusion about milk and buttermilk. True buttermilk is like Rich said, the SKIM milk left after churning cream to get butter. Since you remove all the fat from the cream when the butter breaks, there's none left in the buttermilk. Maybe less than a percent, depending on the efficiency of the butter churn. So it's basically skim milk, no fat.
The thick buttermilk that everyone identifies as "buttermilk" is cultured. It's not thick because it has a lot of fat in it, usually it's the skimmed milk left over after buttermaking, with lactobacillus cultures added. I make mine by letting the fresh milk culture itself, just letting the lactobacillus critters that are in there already multiply on their own, although you can also make it by inoculating it with a small amount of storebought buttermilk. I'm a purist, and I consider that method "cheating," so I like to do mine the old-fashioned way, which is called "clabbering" the milk. The taste is the same either way, but with the naturally cultured clabber, it firms up better, so you can actually do cheese and stuff from it, and inoculating with storebought buttermilk will just make more buttermilk. Since I use my clabber for so many different things, I prefer my homemade stuff.
And there seems to be some confusion about milk and buttermilk. True buttermilk is like Rich said, the SKIM milk left after churning cream to get butter. Since you remove all the fat from the cream when the butter breaks, there's none left in the buttermilk. Maybe less than a percent, depending on the efficiency of the butter churn. So it's basically skim milk, no fat.
The thick buttermilk that everyone identifies as "buttermilk" is cultured. It's not thick because it has a lot of fat in it, usually it's the skimmed milk left over after buttermaking, with lactobacillus cultures added. I make mine by letting the fresh milk culture itself, just letting the lactobacillus critters that are in there already multiply on their own, although you can also make it by inoculating it with a small amount of storebought buttermilk. I'm a purist, and I consider that method "cheating," so I like to do mine the old-fashioned way, which is called "clabbering" the milk. The taste is the same either way, but with the naturally cultured clabber, it firms up better, so you can actually do cheese and stuff from it, and inoculating with storebought buttermilk will just make more buttermilk. Since I use my clabber for so many different things, I prefer my homemade stuff.
Oh, I forgot to say, those little yellow flecks floating around in the storebought buttermilk? Those are NOT butter, they're just particles of something (I don't even know WHAT) that are dyed yellow, to make you THINK it's butter. It's all a scam, from beginning to end.
Them little bacteria taste bad to me.
Super taster/bitter gene.
The ability to taste bitter thiourea compounds and related chemicals is a well‐known human trait. The majority of individuals perceive these compounds, typified by the bitterness of 6‐n‐propylthiouracil (PROP) and phenylthiocarbamide (PTC), as moderately‐to‐extremely bitter. Approximately 30% of the population is taste blind to these substances. It has been hypothesized that PROP/PTC tasters are more sensitive to other bitter tastes, sweet taste, the pungency of chili peppers, the astringency of alcohol, and the texture of fats. Tasters may also show lower preferences for foods with these taste qualities than nontasters who show the opposite set of responses (i.e., lower taste sensitivities and higher preferences for these sensory qualities). This pathway is illustrated in the following model:
https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.03916.x
The ability to taste bitter thiourea compounds and related chemicals is a well‐known human trait. The majority of individuals perceive these compounds, typified by the bitterness of 6‐n‐propylthiouracil (PROP) and phenylthiocarbamide (PTC), as moderately‐to‐extremely bitter. Approximately 30% of the population is taste blind to these substances. It has been hypothesized that PROP/PTC tasters are more sensitive to other bitter tastes, sweet taste, the pungency of chili peppers, the astringency of alcohol, and the texture of fats. Tasters may also show lower preferences for foods with these taste qualities than nontasters who show the opposite set of responses (i.e., lower taste sensitivities and higher preferences for these sensory qualities). This pathway is illustrated in the following model:
https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.03916.x
Part of me shrinks and grows all the time....Don't believe I've shrunk any, but who knows...........
Your stomach?