We've all chuckled and shook our heads a little about the 'chocolate cow giving choclate milk'. What other funny things have you heard from city folks? (or maybe even people who lived in the country and sould have known better!)

-- Rebekah (daniel@itss.net), July 29, 2001

Answers

We were eating at a local cafe one night. The waitress brought us our water. My friend Kent said, "is that river water?" He was asking because there had just been a big raw sewage leak discovered going into the river just upstream from the filtration plant.

The waitress looked at Kent kind of funny, then gave a nervous little giggle, and walked off. We think she thought Kent was a cuckoo, since she KNEW that the water came from the faucet in the kitchen.

JOJ

-- jumpoff joe (jumpoff@ecoweb.net), July 29, 2001.

I grew up in big city but always had a fascination of where food came from. But I still had my share of misconceptions, for example, I thought that farmers were lazy individuals who just leaned on their fence and watched their corn grow! Here are a few of the ones I've heard:

While showing a pumpkin plant with fruit on it to a friend, she just stood there expectantly. Finally, she said- "Well, aren't you going to pull it up?" "Pull it up? Why would I want to do that?" "So I can see the pumpkin!" She thought pumpkins were a root crop!

I set a man down with a jar of cream and told him to shake it for me. He was amazed when it turned into butter. I had a very difficult time convincing him that it really was butter and that butter came from cow's cream. He protested that butter was made in the store from a nasty artificial ingredient-butterfat!!

The same man also refused to eat prunes on the grounds that eating them would make him shriveled up and old looking like the prunes. It took a good deal of talking to persuade him that prunes have no such effect and are nothing more than dried plums. He thought that they grew on the tree all shriveled up!

A girl I knew had been told that raisins came from a special tree, a raisin nut tree. This tree bore nuts that when cracked open, contained three or four raisins in each nut.

-- Rebekah (daniel@itss.net), July 29, 2001.

A long time ago, I dated a guy who, when I told him that I knew how to milk a cow by hand, said hesitantly, "How do you know which one they pee out of?" He actually thought a cow peed out of one of her teets!!!

-- Bonnie (chilton@stateline-isp.com), July 29, 2001.

In a related type of situtation, my father told me about a group of army buddies eating in a resturant just after boot camp during WW2. After the meal the waitress asked "Does anyone want pie?" One rather backwoods type private said yes so the waitress asked "What kind?" The answer was "Why potato of course, what other kind is there?"!

-- mitch hearn (moopups1@aol.com), July 29, 2001.

Hi there Rebekah, the other day I was showing my brother the garden. We came upon the potatoes, and I said "aren't they doing great?', "yeh", he said, "but I don't see any potatoes yet". And he was serious!!! My SIL wanted to know how many green bean plants to buy for the garden, I told her, "Uh, we just plant the bean seeds, not plants". It seems like most people have no idea how food is grown, and they're amazed when they actually see it growing in front of them. Sometimes I wonder, if they think that the supermarkets grow them out back or just magically make them appear on the shelves! Too funny.

-- Annie (mistletoe@kconline.com), July 29, 2001.

I had a friend bring her kids by to see the day old chicks. She was amazed that they were up and running around and asked "Are they weaned yet?"

Someone asked why some of the chickens eggs were green so I said it was because they weren't ripe. They asked when they would ripen.

My husband saw ducks and geese together and said "Look at all the baby geese".

One of my does was in heat and after she was bred she squatted for a few seconds. My oldest daughter was watching the goings on and was horribly disgusted by my bucks behavior. With hand on hips she said "Buck is jumping on Honey's back, and now she's so nervous, she can't even pee!"

-- Julie (julieamc@eagleslair.net), July 29, 2001.

This is just an old joke that's been around forever: A man sat down in a restaurant and asked the waitress what was good that day. "Well," she said, "for today's special the cook has a very nice beef tongue cooked up." The man looked at her, disgusted, and said, "I don't want to eat something that came out of a cow's mouth. I'll have an egg."

-- Jennifer L. (Northern NYS) (jlance@nospammail.com), July 29, 2001.

I have a friend that thought cattle with horns were bulls, and hornless were cows. HE HE Sherry

-- sherry (chickadee259@yahoo.com), July 30, 2001.

I offered my son a dozen eggs from my hens but he refused saying he didn't want to eat anything that came out of the hind end of a chicken. I asked him what kind of eggs he did eat and he said "Store bought, of course!"

-- Trevilians (Trevilians@mediaone.net), July 30, 2001.

I used to sell eggs at work and we were dicussing how fresh eggs are better than store bought eggs and a guy said "anything that hasn't had to be bleached is much better for you!!" He honestly thought that you bleached brown eggs to get them white!!! I had to bring in a chicken book to prove to him that white eggs are not bleached brown eggs!!! Everytime I see him I think about how funny that was,and yes I laugh to myself!!!

-- Sandy(FL.) (REDNECKGIRL32@prodigy.net), July 31, 2001.

My sister-in-law observed a bull and a cow in the barnyard doing what comes naturally and couldnt believe that they did'nt lay down, she went on about this for hours??? I personally thought some music and candle light would be in order.

-- ronda (thejohnsons@localaccess.com), July 31, 2001.

My husband was putting up some electric fence, and our not-so-swift neighbor became very concerned that the fence would kill all the birds that landed on it.

-- Paula (chipp89@bellsouth.net), August 01, 2001.

I had a lady visitor who wanted to help gather eggs. A hen was on one nest , I told her to just reach under her and get the eggs. she was hesitant and I told her again to reach under the hen . She said " well it is kind of personal " She was also surprised that I had Red hens ! She thought all hens wewe white ! Big George

-- George Wilson (cwwhtw@aol.com), August 02, 2001.

I have had a lot of people refer to a beautiful, feminine doe as a 'billy' simply because she had a beard!! I don't know why, but it always kind of bugs me. Same thing with horns-any goat with horns or scurs must be a buck. And how many times have we seen a child point to some bull, and the mother says,"Tommy, see the nice cow?"!

-- Rebekah (daniel@itss.net), August 03, 2001.

At the farm where I work we have a sort of informal contest to see who will be asked the earliest "do you have corn yet?" I think we were first asked in May sometime this year. We sold our first corn yesterday. On the ridiculous side, I have a shirt-tail relative who won't speak to me and hasn't for the past 5 years because I had a lamb she bottle- raised butchered instead of sending it to auction. People can be quite strange!

-- Sheryl in Me (radams@sacoriver.net), August 04, 2001.

Rebekah, have you ever heard "Oh, how can you eat an animal you have raised!?" The answer is easy. We treat the animal with kindness and gentleness, give it the healthiest feed for it in amounts it needs, and when the time comes, dispatch it quickly and humanely so that we can have safe healthy food." I can usually tell whether my comment has hit the mark or if they still want that little anonymous shrink wrapped package at the grocer's.

While driving down a country road, we passed a small herd of cows and a bull resting in the shade of a grove of trees. I commented that the bull looked to be a good one, meaning very masculine and well defined. A man in the car asked me how I could tell there was a bull in the bunch as all were lying down. I pointed out the size and shape difference between his head, neck and shoulders and the cows' and told the townie that if he doesn't look like a bull lying down, he shouldn't BE a bull standing up.

My Boston MA born and bred kinfolk came to the south to see us when I was a teenager. They were all amazed at the size of our Angus cattle as they had never seen a live cow--only pictures with no reference to give an idea of size.

It's wicked of me but I do enjoy telling a squeamish townie about pulling kids and lambs. I had a group from a denomination fond of spreading the Word by knocking on your door and visiting with you at your home. One day, I had had a doe start to kid early and I had an appointment just a few hours later in town. Two men and a lady stopped by to talk to me about my immortal soul. I told them I would be happy to listen but that I had a doe kidding in the barn and they would have to come down there while I tended to her. I was nice to them, I really was, but this was a difficult kidding--triplets, tangled and pretty big. I had blood and kidding juices all down the front of my shirt into my lap and of course my arms were covered as well. As I got the third kid breathing, a doe born full posterior presentation, I noticed how quiet the barn was. I turned to the pen gate--no people, I looked at barn door--no people. I went to look at the driveway--no car. Oh, well. Can't imagine what made them leave.

-- marilyn (rainbow@ktis.net), August 05, 2001.

Wicked of you? Oh, Marilyn, it brings joy to my heart to hear the story. Guess I'm just wicked too. LOL!

-- Sojourner (notime4@summer.spam), August 05, 2001.

Hey Marilyn,

Can I borrow that doe? We get those kinds of people here all the time.

-- Trevilians (aka Dianne in Mass) (Trevilians@mediaone.net), August 05, 2001.

I didn't think I had anything to add here, then I accidentally came across one of my own old postings to an e-mail list during an unrelated GOOGLE search.

This woman - who was allegedly living rurally - thought that outhouses were dangerous because they commonly explode.

No, stop laughing! I'm not kidding! She really thought that an outhouse might blow your homestead to kingdom come! Seriously! Here's what she said:

> By the way, are you aware that outdoor toliets and outhouses > can explode from a single match and blow up one whole block > in area?

Can you believe it? I guess it just goes to show you can take yuppie out of the city, but you can't take the city out of the yuppie. Or something like that ... LOL!

-- Sojourner (notime4@summer.spam), August 05, 2001.

Dianne, I'm sorry. That wonderful old doe died in the fall of her 15th year of heart failure about 10 years ago (she was a Nubian x Alpine NOA who earned her star on one day test and produced just over 20# in 24 hours unoffically). I have an even better solution now. Our yard is entirely fenced and we have 1-3 Pyrs and terrier mutt running in the yard at various times. Only the people who know the dogs come in the gate--everybody else stays in his vehicle and blows the horn.

-- marilyn (rainbow@ktis.net), August 05, 2001.

I've got one.. My brother came to visit me, oh this is ten years ago, I was living in west central MO and he came from Maryland to see me. We went for a drive in the country and he noticed the fall webworms in the pecan trees.. He says, "Susan, what's that spider trying to do..Catch a bird?!" I about drove off the road laughing.

-- Susan (smtroxel@socket.net), September 03, 2001.

When I was a kid, my dad built cottages for "rich folk" from Toronto. They seemed rich to us -- they had new cars.

Anyhow, one of these couples became reasonably friendly with my parents and used to stop by the farm on their way to and from the cottage several times a year. They had two kids our age, and these "townies" loved to run around the barnyard, chasing chickens and generally making nuisances of themselves.

This family stopped one day and us kids were in the barnyard when the bull decided it was "time" with the cow. When he mounted her, this townie kid starts screaming. Dad comes running into the yard, trying to find out what's wrong. This kid starts yelling, "The cows are fighting! Stop them, they'll kill each other!"

I don't think I've ever heard my dad laugh so hard.

Strangely enough, that was the last time those folks came calling!

-- Tracy (trimmer31@hotmail.com), October 12, 2001.