Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Let's have a little fun!

On my Farm Chic post, I cited the example of the young woman who was so disconnected from her food sources that she never realized eggs came from a chicken's butt. Once she learned that dire piece of news, she thereafter refused to eat eggs. Some of you posted comments with similar stories of how disconnected people can be from rural life and from food sources; or disconnected with what it takes to work with one's hands, etc.


So, just for giggles, let's expand that theme. If you know a "disconnect" story, post it in the comments!

59 comments:

  1. Honey... When two very young friends of mine found out it came out of BUGS that was it. No honey for them.

    Fine, it left more for me.

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  2. Had a friend who thought Rocky Mountain Oysters came from alpine lakes. When I informed her where they really came from, I thought she was going to toss her cookies. Word of warning: when informing the ignorant about farm-fresh foods, be sure you aren't standing too close to them.

    Anonymous Patriot
    USA

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  3. Here's one, or at least a related story:
    Check out Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry "Farm Tech" exhibit, http://www.msichicago.org/whats-here/exhibits/farm-tech/.
    I went there years ago, but it doesn't seem to have changed much. Read the description:

    "It takes a lot of food to feed the world's people, and as our population has grown so have our farms. But farms haven't only gotten bigger—they've gotten smarter. Farmers are constantly developing cutting-edge techniques using automation, chemistry, genetics, agriculture, and engineering to make farming more efficient and better for the environment...."

    I'm afraid, rather than giggles though, I found this profoundly disturbing. Busload after busload of children were being shown a sanitized large agribusiness as "what farming IS". Absolutely no room for a human element, or a smaller family farm. Additionally, the exhibit is completely devoid of dirt/earth, let alone water, dust, mud, compost, etc. Things like milk (and manure) are only shown in large tanks, to be processed. Blood is nowhere to be found, even in a city like Chicago well known historically for it's slaughterhouses. Nothing about meat production at all. Of course the animals were plastic.

    So children learn "farming" is done (exclusively) by large agribusiness via technology, and is as spotless as a clean-room laboratory. It's just another kind of high-tech factory. It seems designed to distance people even more from food production rather than bring them closer.

    I know, I know - it's a museum of *technology* and industry, what did I expect? Something a little more balanced, maybe. It was years ago, and it still bothers me very much. I sure hope those field-trip kids got to visit a real family farm too, but I doubt it. That would be dangerous and dirty.

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  4. Several days ago a 4yr old girl was at our house. My husband showed her our chickens and then picked up a couple of eggs for her to take home.
    The next day, her grandpa was going to fix the eggs for her to eat. She said "I don't think I like eggs from aminals, just from grandma's restaurant."
    That was cute but hopefully her attitude will change soon.
    We do a lot of hunting and when I posted my buck picture on facebook last fall, I got quite a few responses about how inhumane that was, however, many of those people love to come to our house for dinner and have my husband cook "meat" for them.

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  5. Same here.

    We have very good friends who live in our mountain community. The wife won't eat honey because it is basically bee spit.

    I asked her one time, "Do you eat chicken eggs?"

    I guess that's different.

    Dave

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  6. I spoke with a 30-something PhD student from my seminary the other night. He is from NYC and he gave us tips how to not get mugged and killed in the city such as, "If you are on a street and you can't see anyone else around, you are about to get killed. You can't see them, but they can see you." I then told him I was from Iowa and he told me that he could never live in Iowa because he is terrified of corn fields. A grown man is more afraid of the imaginary corn field bogey man than he is of real life murderers.

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  7. LOL @ Corn Field Bogeymen...

    I was so proud when my little LA-born, Iowa-transplanted son saw a Ripple potato chip and commented that it looked like a cornfield. ;)

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  8. Great topic, Patrice!

    A destination for field trips for many years, I had a constant parade of third graders attend my county museum presentation on the everyday lives of the ancient tribe indigenous to our area. The tribe's subsistence crop was acorns, which are laborious to process into food -- part of the miracle that the bands and tribes survived.

    I'd lead them through a show-and-tell of artifacts -- bows & arrows, cradleboards, exquisite baskets -- then we'd all sit on the floor and grind a few acorns each in authentic mortars and pestles.

    The disconnect came when it was time to taste the fruit of their labors. A few adventurous 8-year-olds would touch some to their lips, only to ..... eewww! (Until the tannins are leached away, acorns are notoriously bitter, but harmless in small quantities.) More than one of the chaperoning moms would dash to prevent her own child from ingesting the suspect powder.

    Love you, love your blog, Patrice. Waiting impatiently for my pre-ordered book!

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  9. I have always had a quandary with anthropomorphizing farm animals.
    The cinema industry and toy industry has made billions in profits teaching children from infancy age,that animals are inanimate friends. Even as a child, I too was exposed to Bambi,Thumper,Henny Penny, and Ed the talking horse.
    Thus, we strove to NOT name every animal with a human name, especially in the early years of our children's farm life.

    So, one winter's evening, our daughter brought home a couple of unexpected, but very welcomed guests for supper. We had our usual Friday night dishes prepared, and everyone sat down and passed the dishes around, as we usually do at our family table.

    Everyone bragged about the down home cooking that they hardly ever got anymore at their homes.

    When the apple pie was sliced and coffee served, my daughter's friend complemented my wonderful cooking and asked for the recipe for the meatloaf and glazed carrots. My daughter promptly got up and pulled the recipe file off the counter and brought her a blank recipe card and pen to copy them for herself.

    Four or five bites into the apple pie and she's copying the recipes, she jumps out of her chair and runs to the restroom, gagging I ate BAMBI!

    My meatloaf is made of ground Bambi and Porky the Pig!

    C'est la vie at our home.

    Now we disclose all ingredients to unexpected guests, before they sit down to eat at our table.


    notutopia

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  10. A fellow volunteer firefighter tried to convince a group of us that a rooster breeds a hen by jumping on top of her (true so far) and grabbing the back of her neck (still true). But that's all it took. No penetration needed, no penis needed (although technically they don't have an "acutal" penis so to speak)...just grab on to her neck and "Boom", fertilized eggs. Apparently he is convinced that the neck-grabbing is all that's needed.

    Asked him if he did any chicken-neck-grabbing and if there were any little chickens with his features running around.

    Even more disturbing is that he says he was a 4-H Chicken judge in his earlier years.

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  11. My children were all raised in rural environments. Now they all live in cities or towns. Even though they grew up knowing the beef and hogs were going to be eaten, I have one daughter that tells her kids that the hogs have gone to summer camp when we send them to the butcher. Needless to say Gpa & Gma have gently been teaching them that the animals are raised to feed us.

    I think what is sad, is, not only are the majority of our fellow Americans ignorant about where and how their food ends up on their tables, but they have grown up eating fast food and they think it is the norm. They prefer it to real, honest to goodness fresh food. They have grown up eating sub par food and don't have a clue what something fresh tastes like.

    When I first got my chickens, I had to resort to utube videos to learn how to clean and dress a chicken. I could not find anyone that I knew that knew how to teach me that skill.

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  12. I think I confused one of my vegan/tree hugger friends (disclaimer: I am allowed to refer to her as such...she calls me a bambi killer). She was nagging me about my meat consumption. I asked her if she knew how many little rodents were ground up in the plowing of the field that held her veggies. She was equally oblivious as to how much water is needed to grow the items in her salads. For some, I think they believe food stuff just magically appears at the store.

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  13. I have a relative who never cooks on the stove top or oven. She cooks everything in the microwave -even things I didn't think could be cooked in a microwave, like brownies. I shudder to think how she would handle having no electricity for any length of time.

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  14. Patrice,

    Since I've gotten old I do spend a little time off the farm and I do enjoy going to the local mall to sit and watch the herds. Last time there, there was a sizable flock of the EMO people and now I understand better what your daughter was talking about. They are amusing to watch.

    Often I talk to others a little older than teenagers. Their observations agree with mine that there are few who have ANY manual skills other than their phone. To my "can do" mind these folks seem about useless and I fear the only thing they may be capable of doing is offering you violence to get what they cannot provide otherwise.

    In my own family, most view me as most peculiar. One family meal when all the in-laws and out-laws got together, I was the ONLY one who knew how to grow potatoes, certainly one of the easiest of crops. Prepared? Only Big Sister and me; the rest will starve or go to a FEMA camp.

    Then there was another to whom I described how to feed fish using earthworms grown in manure beds. Worm fleshed fish??? Worms made of horse poo??? Never! The EEUUWWW factor was too great.

    Winston Bearkiller

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  15. My comment is not a disconnect as much as an origin gross-out: When we lived in Ohio, we had an unpleasant abundance of rabbits. With our 6ft privacy fence (even in the city limits - sh!), we shot many. We'd always eat what we'd shoot, of course. Anyway, I had a great hamburger stroganoff recipe that worked very well with rabbit. We enjoyed it several times :) Once my parents came to visit and we had it as a surprise entree. They loved it...until they convinced us to tell them what was the mystery meat. I really thought my poor mother was going to lose it at the dinner table! lol

    Since someone else brought up slaughtering chickens, I do have a question about it. Once when I was repossessing a musical instrument, I had to go to someone'e house on the outskirts of another town. They were slaughtering chickens and it was the most amazingly awful stench I'd ever smelled (and that's being kind)! Is it always that way or were those people doing something "wrong?" They were working on I would guess about 25+ chickens... just wondering...
    KatieJ
    Germany

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  16. I was raised & attended college in the cornfields of Indiana. My college roommate was from the city of Buffalo, NY. Once, while driving down an Indiana interstate she looked out over the vast green sea of corn fields and said "Where do they can all this corn anyway?"

    She had no idea that more corn was grown to feed animals and for seed than was grown for human consumption. It blew her mind!

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  17. A friend's husband related having hosted a group of fourth graders on a field trip to visit his organic farm. During the tour he pulled a carrot from the ground, whereupon several of the kids declared it "EEUWW GROSS!" When he asked why, the reply was "It's dirty!"

    These children had no previous idea that carrots grew in dirt, and swore never to eat them again.

    God help us.

    Last year I took my city-raised neighbor out to pick wild berries with me. She refused to pick anything lower than three feet off the ground. When I asked her why, she said "Because all kinds of things have probably come by and peed on it!"

    Well ohtay then.

    I once witnessed a young woman (a city girl) end a friendship when she saw her 'friend' using chicken giblets in the preparation of a meal.
    Her reason? "I don't associate with the kind of people who eat guts. That's just wrong."

    Note: Remember not to invite any of these people to Thanksgiving Dinner. Not ever.

    A. McSp

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  18. Growing up we had goats in our suburban lot due to cow's milk allergies some 25 - 30 years ago. Since you have to breed the goats every year to keep them milking, we'd get new baby goats to feed and love for a couple of months until they got too big.

    My parents told us they'd go to a good farm and so we had visions they'd gambol and play and be happy goats until they died of old age.

    A couple of months ago I found out the "good farm" was the local Greek community who wanted the young goats for their delicious meat! After I got over the initial surprise of not being told about this for literally decades, I laughed :)

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  19. My grandparents and parents owned a grocery store together. I grew up in the store helping stock shelves and, on occasion, grind hamburger after I had reached my teen years.

    Prior to that, when I was about 10, we went to visit my grandmother's sister who lived on a "town farm." The town where they lived allowed chickens, etc., within the town limits. Many towns these days don't, but this was in the 1950's.

    My great aunt asked if I like fried chicken and, well, who doesn't. My grandmother always fixed great fried chicken from the grocery store. Promptly, after I answered my Great Aunt's question, she told me to come with her.

    We went out back and she went into the chicken coop, grabbed a chicken, wrung it's neck, then proceeded to sit on the bench out back to pluck it. I was horrified to say the least. I had no idea that's how chicken's got into the grocery store. I also didn't eat chicken for a full year.

    I can laugh at that now thinking how naive I was as a child. Today, I truly wish I could have chickens on the 2/3 acre we live on in town, but our zoning code won't allow it. That might change, however, as times get harder.

    Recently, I saw in the newspaper, where the town closest to us and the second largest in Wyoming, petitioned the city council to allow chickens in the yards of town residences; not roosters, but chickens. We'll see how that goes.

    Thanks, Patricia, for such a wonderful blog. My husband and I, both, enjoy your articles daily.

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  20. My sis-in-law dated a brilliant young man in college, however, his "smarts" were all just book learning. There was a wheat field growing near their home, and her boyfriend was AMAZED to see the ripening wheat. You see, he thought it should be round and look like Cheerios.

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  21. The smell when butchering chicken can come from the feather. if they are very dirt, when you dunk them in the hot water, it can really stink! Ask me how I know! Also we started butchering in the late fall. When it is cooler it seems not to smell so bad. Also the flies are much less and that makes it much better, no battles with them. The wood smoke and heat are welcomed when it is cooler. I love to be out on a beautiful fall day with a nice camp fire, lots of help, and chickens to can and put in the freezer. Then I'm in hog, I mean, chicken heaven!

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  22. A FEW YEARS AGO WE HAD A YOUNG COUPLE MOVED IN 3 DOORS DOWN- UNEMPLOYED ,WELFARE, ETC.. ANYWAY THEY HAD NO PHONE SO SHE WOULD COME (OFTEN) TO USE OUR PHONE- ONE DAY SHE CAME OVER AND ASKED TO USE THE PHONE TO CALL THE WATER COMPANY(I KNEW THEIR WATER HAD BEEN SHUT OFF 2 DAYS PREVIOUS) I TOLD HER OKAY AND LED HER TO THE KITCHEN WHERE THE PHONE IS LOCATED-- SHE SEEMED VISIBLY UPSET... MY HUSBAND ENTERED THE ROOM JUST AS SHE STARTED TO YELL AT WHOEVER ANSWERED AT THE WATER COMPANY-- HEY YOU GUYS JUST CAME AND HOOKED UP OUR WATER AND WE DONT HAVE ANY HOT WATER(HUSBAND CHOKING ON COFFEE)SHE ENDED HER CALL WITH I DONT HAVE THE MONEY TO HIRE A REPAIRMAN.(AND HUNG UP)- AFTER MY HUSBAND RECOVERED HE EXPLAINED THAT HOT WATER COMES FROM HER HOT WATER TANK AND PROBABLY THE BREAKER WASNT TURNED BACK ON-- OH SHE SAID ILL GO HOME AND TELL MY HUSBAND TO CHECK THAT AND PROMPTLY LEFT--- APARENTLY HE DIDNT KNOW THE WATER COMPANY WASNT RESPONSIBLE FOR HOT WATER EITHER--OH AND BY THE WAY THEY WERE IN THEIR MID TWENTIES AND HAD 4 CHILDRENN.,,,,

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  23. Funny "thread" here...

    There is a guy in our neighborhood that grows most of the produce... he says his neighbor saw him putting manure on his garden early one year and told him that they would NEVER buy vegetables from him again. Imagine - putting cow poop on your vegetables! Miracle Grow is the only civilized way to go.

    I used to bake and sell baked goods for a side income. I once had a lady ask me where I got the cookies I sell. I said that I had made them and she laughed. I asked what was funny. She stared at me somberly and asked..."How!?" She later told her friends that she thought I made all my stuff from Schwan's ready-bake stuff and that she didn't know people could make stuff from scratch.

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  24. Ad seen in newspaper: "Why don't you hunters go to the grocery store to get meat that didn't come from animals?"
    When we were raising pigs and beef cattle, the kids thought they were going to make them pets. Of course, that had to be nipped in the bud. After a talk with the kids about the real purpose of the animals, we gave them gentle reminders with the names we allowed them to give the animals.
    There was "Easter Dinner", "Pork Chops", "Smoked Ham", "Bacon", and "Side Pork"... the beef were "Hamburger", "Roast", "Steak", "Sirloin", "Tenderloin"... the kids still laugh about that.
    Shy III

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  25. Two quick comments regarding butchering chickens: Last year I, too, had to learn how from watching YouTube videos, because although I have lots of friends who know how to butcher deer, nobody knew how to butcher a chicken. Second, I never had any bad smell from this process, but then I just dry-plucked them (Barred Rocks) with no problem. I never did the whole dunking in boiling water thingie.

    And although my (young) kids did not participate in this

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  26. Oops, I hate laptop touchpads sometimes. What I was trying to finish saying is that my young children did not participate in the butchering of the "extra" roosters, but they are the daily collectors of the eggs and they know very well where they come from... doesn't bother them one little bit.

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  27. During some of my condo living years one of the neighbor kids came over to watch me plant some flowers.....the conversation soon turned to what makes gardens grow so well, and fertilizer came up.....in her mind, fertilizer was just some "ground up white stuff" so I had her read the ingredients on some of the bags I was using......after a few silent minutes suddenly she was exclaiming "blood? There's blood in here?" and "manure? Like in poop?"......it didn't take much longer for her to realize that FOOD in a garden is grown in poop, LOL.....

    She was ok with eating animals, but no more veggies grown in their poop....hehehe......

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  28. There was a knock on our door one day a few years ago and, when I answered, there were people that were rather upset at the door. They informed me that some of my sheep had babies hanging out of them, and I needed to Do Something! Since it wasn't lambing season, I was very puzzled. I asked them to show me.

    They left in a huff after they lead me to the pasture, and I couldn't stop laughing while I explained that those hangy down things weren't lambs because those sheep were rams (males), and what they were looking at were actually testicles. I got the feeling that they did NOT believe me.

    Now when I'm growing out rams to choose replacement sires from, I keep 'em in pastures away from the road.

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  29. when i was 12 yrs old my daddy got aggravated because our dog had started going after the chickens...anyway, he proceeded to put the poor dog out its misery. then after he yelled at the four kids who were very tearful over the loss of their dog, he decided to just put an end to the chickens too...and yes, killing and cleaning alot of chickens is a hot and smelly job-and will take away the hankering for a fried chicken dinner for a good many years.

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  30. Oops. Should be LED, not lead, in my above post. D'OH!

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  31. "Anonymous said...

    My sis-in-law dated a brilliant young man in college, however, his "smarts" were all just book learning. There was a wheat field growing near their home, and her boyfriend was AMAZED to see the ripening wheat. You see, he thought it should be round and look like Cheerios.
    April 12, 2011 2:28 PM "

    LOL, poor guy didn't even have the right cereal in mind......

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  32. When my daughter was four, she sat seriously contemplating her corn on the cob and then said "How do they put the corn on the cob?"

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  33. We live about 3 hours from NYC. Therefore we get a whole BUNCH of them certain times of the year. We've heard it ALL. Like there was a field chock full of COWS. Black and white mind you... and the group of tourists standing nearby (this was at a National historical park) said "Oh Look at all the beautiful DEER." I kid you not. I am surprised that they didn't hear my jaw hit the pavement.

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  34. Honest-to-God-true-stories from the Last Frontier....

    A bush pilot dropped off a wealthy city client on a remote river bank for a fly-in fishing trip. As they unloaded the gear, the pilot noticed the guy had no bear protection so he offered him his .44 magnum revolver. The New Yorker rather recoiled from the sight of a naked firearm and declined. "No thanks", he said. "I bought some bear repellent yesterday".

    The pilot took off, and, as is customary, circled back over the client to make sure he was settled in. The pilot saw the man thrashing around frantically in the river shallows so he circled back again to quickly land.

    Turns out that the fellow had sprayed the searing hot pepper spray all over himself as you would mosquito repellent.
    ****************************

    Our son was trying to pick a college so we called around to some "Outside" (lower 48) schools to get some financial info. The receptionist asked if our son had a green card or a visa.

    "Huh? Come again?" we asked.

    "He's gonna need one coming from a foreign country, ya know" she stated matter-of-factly.

    We hung up and crossed the school off the list.
    ***********************

    I don't remember the particulars but we called a company to inquire as to why they hadn't sent the information requested; it had been 3 weeks already.

    The gal in the office found the package and said it had come back with "incorrect address" stamped on it. She read our address back to us, and yes, that was the correct address. On a hunch, my wife asked state abbreviation did she use.

    "Alaska", she said, "AL".

    "Ummm - that's Alabama", wife said. "Use 'AK'".

    "No", she says, "that's Arkansas".

    "No", wife says, "Arkansas is 'AR'".

    "What? Isn't that Arizona??" she says.

    "Sorry, Arizona is AZ".

    Click - the line went dead. We called back the next day and got a different girl, thankfully.
    ***********************

    In one other phone call, while making idle conversation, the receptioist asked how we liked all the warm weather. A bit puzzled by her comment, we told it wasn't so bad. it was -2 yesterday but had "warmed up" to 12 today.

    "WHAT!?!?" she screeched, "It can't possibly be that cold down there. You're right off the coast of southern California!" (Think map inset).
    ***************************

    Folks, you can't make this stuff up.

    Steve Davis
    Anchorage, Alaska

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  35. As with some of my posts, this one will seem a bit off topic, but I respectfully submit that it isn't.

    For my 50th birthday present to myself I signed on to crew on HM Barque Endeavour for six weeks on one of its world voyages. It's a three masted Australian tall ship that's an exact, full sized replica of Capt. Cook's ship of exploration in the 18th century.

    We would stop in various ports, and turn the ship into a museum, and people would take tours. Now, in order to meet modern insurance regulations and various laws it had to have modern diesel propulsion, though we didn't use it much. But, like everything else modern, the engines were hidden away on the lowest deck, which we called The Twentieth Century. Off limits to the public.

    Alas, one day the engineer left the hatch to his machinery space open briefly, and a sweet lady on my tour peered down in there at the gleaming diesel engines, and in all innocence asked me, "Are those the original engines?"

    I like to think of myself as a gentleman, and back then I was even able to think pretty quickly on my feet, so I said, "No, Ma'am, those are newer 20th century engines."

    That satisfied her.

    Bill Smith

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  36. When I decided to keep chickens I told all my friends that I'd have eggs for them. The conversation went around to how loud the roosters would be. When I told them that I wouldn't be having a rooster (city code) Several of them said that I couldn't get eggs unless I had a rooster!!! We went around and around trying to convince them that we could and five months later they were eating my non-existant eggs. One point for my side.

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  37. These are hilarious! Reminded me of one of my mother's co-workers who was from NYC. Both were nurse managers in MD, right outside Washington, D.C. Once the city lady called out to the other nurse managers, "Oh my gosh! Look at all those dogs? Whose are they???" Turns out there were deer in a close-by field!

    And Mr. Davis (you know, the one from the fur-in cuntree), I feel your pain in a much smaller way. I was born in Washington, D.C. Some idiot at our county's birth certificate office wrote Washington (WA) on my youngest's birth certificate. When I called to complain, I was told that I should've written "D.C." on the application (instead of "Washington, D.C."!) and that the certificate could be amended, but not replaced. I chose not to make my little guy have to carry around a 2-pt birth certificate for his whole life. sigh...

    KatieJ
    Germany

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  38. My family and I routinely help with the county fair in our area. There is a large tent which houses livestock exhibits. Since a lot of the animals are ours, this is where we are usually stationed to answer questions and monitor the animal/public interactions. One year a young girl (9 or 10) asked me why we put eggs in the cages with the chickens.

    Another instance occurred at another county's fair where my older girls were showing heifers for 4H. The animals were tied to their trailer waiting for their class. A woman and her young daughter walked by. The child asked "What are those, momma?". To which her mother replied "Those are camels, honey."

    Laurie in NC

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  39. I worked in a bakery-cafe for years and never ceased to be amazed what my college student employees didn't know. Probably my favorite was when one of them insisted that skim milk, 2% milk and half-and-half came from different kinds of cows. She was completely serious, and the other manager on duty with me actually sat on the floor and laughed until he cried.

    Customers were no better, sadly. During the height of the swine flu hysteria a professionally dressed lady earnestly asked one of my cashiers "Does your bacon have swine flu?"

    Then there was the one who called the cafe to ask if our chicken was "fresh", as if she expected us to keep a chicken run on the roof and pluck our own every morning.

    Or the one who screamed at my GM for 10 minutes during a lunch rush about how we were being atrociously wasteful and unhealthy by picking our tomatoes too early. She was baffled and appalled to find out we got them from a produce company. What gave her the idea that my staff would be picking our own tomatoes.

    Thanks for opening this up to stories - its nice to see I'm not the only one living in the midst of the uninformed!

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  40. We have had twelve goat kids born in the last week. We rotate them on pasture and they are currently situated near the road. We've had a lot of people stop their cars in interest. A journalism student from the local university happened by and asked my husband about the "calves." He corrected her and said they were goats. She then asked if the mother goats were calves.

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  41. One year at Thanksgiving time, my father brought his new girlfriend to dinner. She was horrified when my wife used the giblets in the gravy, but thought nothing of showing us the selection of pâtés she brought as appetizers.

    It took us a good 15 minutes to convince her that the pâtés were made from the same type of organ meats.


    Conlaoch

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  42. Had a neighbor come over once to see our chickens. My kids were gathering eggs and she asked how we knew when they were big enough to collect from the hens?!!

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  43. 'How do they get the peas in the little pods??'

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  44. Ruby, (the made from scratch) post and the ones from Steve Davis, Alaska, made me laugh out loud. These are the funniest things I have heard in a long time. And yet so sad.

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  45. Well, I have to add that not all the ignorance is on the side of the city slickers. When I was first married, I decided to surprise my husband with brownies one evening. He, farm-born and raised, didn't know that brownies could be made from scratch. Still laughing over that thirty years later.

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  46. My Dad grew up on a farm and one day he was in town dropping off some eggs at his aunt's house. Well, her neighbor was there at the time and said to her, "You get your eggs from farmers? I would never do that. Who knows how long the eggs have been lying around before they pick them up and bring them to town. Now me, I get my eggs fresh from the grocery store." My Dad said, "That's my next stop."

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  47. My son's moment of realization came when he was about 4 yrs old. Of course, he had seen his Mom cook many times and loved to each chicken. We lived on a small acreage and had a few chickens that he liked to watch and feed. When butcher day came, he was watching me skin the chickens and the light went on. "Dad", he said, "there's chicken in the chicken."

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  48. I had a co-worker once who always drank soda and ate powdered donuts. Skinny thing she was, with health issues. I commented once that maybe if she drank water instead of soda, some of her heath issues may go away. Her reply? "Fish poop in water."

    ooookay.

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  49. Overheard at a chicken-specialty fast food chain:

    One teenaged young lady to her lunch companion: "I only order tenders or boneless hot wings. I think the chicken that has bones is GROSS!"

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  50. I don't have a good story like the rest of you but I did have to laugh at myself Sunday night while I was poking holes in both ends of some eggs then blowing the white and yolk out of the shell. Ewwww! I was put my mouth on something that came out of a chickens butt!!!!! Getting ready to have some Easter fun with the granddaughters this weekend. :D
    And grannyb, my stepdaughter hates bones in chicken so, of course, I have to fix chicken with bones still intact quite regularly!!

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  51. My nephew had a fit when I told him he needed to wash his hands after rounding up the chicken eggs for me. He asked why several times. I finally said, Because eggs come out of chicken butts. When you you pick up an egg, its like touching a chicken butt. He has been great at washing his hands since that day. Both my kids died laughing.

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  52. I used to think it was just my warped sense of humor that I'd point out farm animals to my kids as "Look at that field full of steak & burgers!" ... but apparently I was educating them as to where their food came from. And I've found that most 4-year-olds think anything involving a creature's "butt" is funny (especially when they come from families where "butt" is a dirty word they're not allowed to say), and actually like eggs more when they're told eggs come from chicken butts.

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  53. Thanks for the laugh everyone!
    I stayed at my (very religeous) brother-in-laws with my baby. I was breastfeeding her when my 8yr old neice looked at us and laughed with astonishment. "She's sucking on your tummy! I think she likes it". A bit taken aback and unsure how much I was allowed to say but not wanting to lie I explained that I was feeding her milk like a cow does to a calf. That led into explanation after explanation. About how milk is made, what breasts are and when she'll be able to feed a baby from them, where the milk we drink comes from and so on. Later after bub's bath my 6yr old nephew watched me dry her off. His question "How do you know she's a girl"? Er, she doesn't have a... I was unsure how to continue but luckily he supplied the sanitized word.
    Had a friend who only ate cage eggs because the others lay around in the dirt and poo.
    I've also many friends who only eat meat from the supermarket because it's 'kinder'. I'm the cruel one to raise a happy animal and kill it cleanly, "I can't belive you eat your pets"!

    Amanda

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  54. We had foster children from a big city and they always were surprised at where food comes from. One 6 year old was collecting eggs from the barn and found some eggs in the horse feed box. He didn't want to bring those in as he wanted the eggs to hatch into little ponies. When asked one day if he knew where money came from, he said the mailbox. But they all loved to plant bean seed, watch the plants grow, pick, and then eat them. What an education for them. But they didn't like to dig potatoes, too much dirt.

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  55. These comments made me chuckle at first. Then dread set in. Our family is no where near owning our own land or having animals (landlord doesn't allow farm animals) but I read as much as I can for TEOTWAWKI. Stupidity can be funny but really, it is just sad. God help us!

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  56. This disconnect does not just occur in regards to where our food comes from, it also applies to wild life and the "animals are our friends" crowd. I live in small town in B.C., and there is a sizeable bear population. The bears like to graze on the clover that grows on the embankments on the side of the roads. This often draws attention from the tourists who don’t get to see much wild life so understandably they want some pictures. Over the past few years visitors have stopped in the middle of the road opened the doors on both sides of the vehicle, obstructing traffic in both directions to take pictures. Then there is the lets park between mama and her cubs to feed or pet said cubs and miss the hint the huffing and teeth clacking mama bear is sending out. Last year a tourist stopped to take a picture of a bear on the side of the road. He wanted to get up nice and close. He proceeded to follow a fairly large bear into the woods with his camera and with his wife and children watching.
    sigh!

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  57. Thanks so much, everybody! I had such good laughs out of these! I grew up in a town of 500 with towns all around, but am now in the city and my children have grown up in the city. Thankfully, we have farm friends where we have gone frequently, and the kids have seen soy beans, corn, wheat and other field crops growing and also witnessed cats and dogs and cows mating and baby animals being born, so we're doing pretty well in those departments, anyway. :)

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  58. Here's an article about food source disconnect with rabbit meat.

    Some yummy recipes in it too!

    How to Cook an Easter Bunny
    http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2011/04/18/cook-easter-bunny/

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  59. Looks like I'm the first commenter in a while so not sure if anyone will read this but I have to relate one that my 1.5 yo daughter helped with. We were teaching her what sounds animals make, you know "what's a dog say, woof, woof whats a cow say moo" etc. My slightly skewed sense of humor caused me to teach her "what's a deer say, YUMMY" I know funny but wrong. So she was going through these for her aunt(a very city person) who is convinced that she can't and won't eat deer because she can taste the difference(HUH) and when she got to the deer one looks at me and says, "Do they really say that?" I was very polite and didn't laugh in her face, I simply turned around and walked out of the room.

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