[Homestead] Farm Animals was SE PA going to identifiablenon-cashsmartcard...

Clansgian at wmconnect.com Clansgian at wmconnect.com
Mon Nov 17 14:20:21 EST 2008



> >Y'all can call them nannies.  I'm a purist:  I say ewes for sheep and 
> does for goats.

Purist.   I'll have to think about that.

As you know a pint of milk weighs about a pound.  A trifle less, but we lose 
more than that cleaning the buckets and strainers.  

On a farmstead one does not weigh milk, one puts it in jugs and bottles and 
such.  Those jugs and bottles are liquid measures and so when a person is in 
the nitty-gritty, manure up to the elbows, get the damn milk in the cooler so I 
can go feed evertybody eles, type of operation,   it is only natural that they 
are in the habit of talking about how many pints of milk they are dealing 
with not how many pounds.

Big diaries got in the habit of talking about milk in terms of pounds because 
those big tanks and trucks could be tared and then weighed full of milk to 
determine how much they were dealing with.

When I hear a homesteader talking about how many "pounds" of milk this or 
that animal gives, it always strikes me as pretentious.   A sort of "Ah, didn't 
you *know* that the proper term is *pounds* of milk!?"

I've got to confess that referring to nannies as does strikes me with the 
same sort of one-ups-man-ship.  

Also on the remote hardscrabble farmstead there is a practical consideration. 
 If someone comes into the house and says, "There's a doe in the pasture!"  
it means it's time to take down the rifle and shoot it.  If you don't want 
someone to go into instant Esau mode, best to call the caprines "nannies".


James



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