Making Money

A real concern for many would be homesteaders is how to make money. In past posts we've looked at ways to live cheap, now what about making cash to cover the stuff we can't live without. As most of know, I pay most of my bills by milking a small herd of jersey cows. This isn't for everyone, you really have to love it. No matter what you do, you need to love your work. Find something you love to do, and you can find a way to make it work. If you grow your own food, make your own power, cut your own wood and then work a 9-5 job punching a time clock....You still won't be happy. Having a seflsuffiecent homestead requires self employment, at least it does for me. I thought I might offer some ideas on homestead money makers. None of these supports a family on there own, but you can use them to help cover bills never the less.

Trapping-you can sell your furs to country buyers or auctions. Nuisance trapping is a great money maker. Suburbanites will pay top dollar to have coons and squirrels removed from the attic.

Mushrooms-the woods is full of them and people, usually those from "the olda country" will always pay cash.

Extra eggs, milk, berries and other things you have a surplus of.

Pastured chickens sold for meat-don't need a lot of acres and health food folks can't get enouph.

Reselling junk-We do real well buying stuff at yard sales and reselling it on ebay. Sell stuff your farmiliar with. We like to buy stuff for 25 cents and resell it for 5 bucks.

Well, I got to scoot. Any other ideas are welcome in the comments, I'll put some more of my own there when I get time.

Alternative Energy, Build a Dehydrator

One of our goals for the new homestead is to be energy independent in the next 5 years or so. To comply with the laws we had to have "store bought" power hooked up. This will work out alright becouse putting together alternitive energy systems that work require a bit of cash, cash we don't have much of these days. We have a little experience with rigging up stuff from our Alaska days and the cabin we had back home growing up. Anyone who is interested in doing this sort of thing on a budget might like this article Paring down for off-grid living. It covers how to reduce demand for power, so that our "poor man's" alternative energy systems will work. Being on top of this windy hill has us looking into Wind Power. Windmills have come a long way in the last few years.

Heres some plans for a large-capacity food dehydrator you can build at home.
We like to dry bell peppers to use in cooking. If you dry them and keep them in jars instead of freezing them, everything in the freezer won't tast like peppers. You can do them in the stove, but this thing here could be good for bigger jobs.

We Now Have Running Water

We have reached a milestone. Its sort of neat, yet kind of spooky. If you turn on the faucet in the kitchen.......water comes out. When you flush the toilet........it makes a funny noise and fills its self back up with water(no 5 gallon pail required). Bathroom sink......you guessed it, water comes out. We are livin' high on the hog now. Watering the garden is almost to easy. We got one of them long snake like things called a garden hose and...........thats right water comes out of that too! In one afternoon I made my wife very happy and my children amazed.

A Place Out in the Country

Don't miss your chance to see the The Prairie Muffin Compound. I was impressed, just like I imagined it.

Agricultural Colleges

Joel Salatin says that he is often asked if he learned what he knows at an agricultural college. His answer is timeless, "No, if I went to ag college I'd be like the rest of them eggheads. I learned what I know from talking to my dad and grampa and successful farmers in my area." My one plea to anyone considering being a farmer is this, Stay Away from the landgrant colleges, and farmers please keep your kids away from them. I believe they have done more to destroy the family farm than anything else. Of course the mainstream farm magazines have helped out, but the articles are all written by college grads. When I graduated from highschool everyone said "you have to go to college. Farming has changed so much, its a business now." Well duh, its always been a business. Just now its dominated by poor debt based business practices. Anyway, I finally gave in and went. After one year I realized what a waste of our families money it was and went home. I had good grades and could have finished if I had wanted to. The crap they were trying to brainwash me with was so awful I could not stand it anymore. If you wonder for a minute why farming has fallen into the mess its in, just go sit in on one of these classes at a landgrant college. They have produced a generation of arrogant know it alls that have squandered away multigenerational fortunes at rate that makes ones head spin.

We Had Visitors and Other News You May Have Missed

Yesterday while I was doing the evening milking I had a nice surprise. Some old friends I haven't seen in a couple of years, Ethan and Jeanette, came strolling down the barn floor. We had lots to catch up on. They were passing through and only could stay for an hour or so because they had to stop and see granny on the way home. I hope next time they have time for homebrew and an old time chat fest! They may be moving out this way, which would be nice. Little Noah was sick last night. He seems to be feeling better today. The cows had no intentions of coming to the barn for milking this morning. It was like pulling teeth to get them off the hill. Its raining this morning and you would figure they would want to get in out of it. Our "reformed homebrew" is so good that even the Catholics are talking about it! In his latest post Dangerous Relativism, Chad shows us that even the gays know its unbiblical to charge interest. Folks you need to read that one! Todd and Heather have a new Baby Girl. Praise the Lord for another covenant child. Well off to the barn I go.

News From the Home Place, Bush, BSE, and CAFTA

Howdy to all. I wanted to post something last night, but we had a state wide phone meeting for the NY Constitution Party at 9pm that used up what time I had. Leah, the boys and I built "pig fence" last night after milking. I took John and Noah over to pick out some piglets 2 days ago, and Larry said he'd save some for us. The boy's chicks are fast growing into chickens! We have settled on limiting the pastured broilers to 50 birds this year. We need to work on marketing and advertising. If it looks like demand will be strong we can raise more next time around. We will be ordering them and more layer replacements pretty soon. We have finally got some rain. Pastures are getting short, cows have almost made it through all the rotations already. We usually have more grass than we need, this year its just about right. Temp is cooler than normal. Its only in the 50s this week. The garden is ahead of what it usually is, so we're happy about that. Leah got a good deal on a pressure canner last Sat and we gave it to Rebecca for a late birthday present on Sunday after church. Getting canners in the hands of able bodied housewives is a good thing indeed! We ate some canned beef yesterday at lunch. If you've never done it you just gotta give it a try. We have some loin roasts in mason jars as well as stew meat. Get done late outside, no problem, just pop the top and heat it up.......so tender and what flavor! Every so often at butcher time we keep some out fresh and can it instead of freezing, time consuming work but well worth the effort.

I thought this was a good example of more Bush Idolatry ,brought to us by Lee R. Shelton IV.

As long as I'm going on about old Bush again, Why does he keep trying to open the Canadian border up for cattle and beef imports. Never mind for a minute that the border closing has helped the US dairy and beef farmers finally make a little money for once. Not having to compete with the highly subsidized Canadian beef and the flood of dairy heifers that feed the factory farm boys has helped out the small farmers here a great deal. But the real stinker of it is this, the beef ain't safe folks. Those pesky neighbors to the north have decreased BSE (mad cow) testing by some 28% since they found the 2 cows in January. They are doing every thing possible not to find any more positive cows while knowing full well that they have got many more infected. You need to read some of the stuff that R-Calf has put together Here. They had a press release in the Counrtyfolks newspaper that was really an eye opener. My big question is why dose Bush and his cronies in Washington seem to be so intent on opening up the border. Farmers in this country will suffer and the consumers will be eating beef that is infected with BSE. It just don't make sense.

CAFTA is another thorn in my backside lately. The big shots keep talking about all the exports we will be sending out. The combined economies of these countries is about the size New Haven Conn. Thats right folks, all we will be exporting is more jobs. This agreement stinks for us and them. The global corporations and agribusiness giants will be the only ones to win. Workers and farmers will continue to be exploited, all for the sake of our new god.....the Global Economy.


Wow, I'm quite a complainer today. Lets end this on a happy note. The boys have become avid fossil hunters. They are very proud of their collection. It is a lot of fun to set back and watch them digging through the rock piles. When they find a good one they come running over to dad and proudly show off the latest find. Perhaps I should spend a little time digging fossils instead of griping about the globalist elite so much.

Todays Planting and Supin' to Read

After I got the cows milked and back outdoors, Leah and I planted 18 tomato plants and seeded carrots, radishes, and beets. The garden is starting to come along now. The peas look pretty good. I'm pushing the envelope a little as far as frost dates, but we'll see what happens. I'll either have an early harvest that makes me look really smart or a total failure that makes me look like....well.

Here's a good article in Graze about a very successful dairymen that milks less than 30 cows.

I also found this one interesting. Did you know part of the "transfer of power" in Iraq included screwing Iraqi farmers and benefiting the transnational seed companies? Check out this article on the global war on farmers called IRAQ'S NEW PATENT LAW: A DECLARATION OF WAR AGAINST FARMERS.

Thoughts and Updates

I've been busy as a beaver the last couple days, hence my lack of blogging. I now return to the computer to bring you more thoughts and updates from a simple reformed hillbilly. We have had a few calves born yesterday and today. A couple of new fresh cows always adds some time to chores. We still haven't named Elsies calf yet and I may enlist the help of my readers, so stay tuned for some kind of calf naming contest. We have been doing a bit of garden work. Yesterday I decided to put plastic over my layed compost type spot instead of hay mulch. I'll pile on hay and manure and compost this fall after harvest. I did this for no other reason than it was easier right now. Next year perhaps I'll do it with hay. We planted broccoli and cauliflower plants last night. We planted spinach seeds yesterday at lunch time. Tomatoes are next. The blueberries are doing well. I spent a bit of time cutting grass around them yesterday. As time allows I've been reading the Salatin book. What I read yesterday cracked me up. I thought I'd heard every nickname for Harvestore silos (the big blue ones). Joel called them "bankruptcy Tubes". I like that one. But better yet, Charles Walters called them "Monuments to the stupidity of mankind". Speaking of stupidity, I was reading about a feller who went to a "conservative" conference and found a great example of Bush idolatry. He noticed " A number of people at the conference were wearing shirts and hats that piously stated, "God, Reagan, Bush." I am constantly amazed at the evanjellyfish and their support for W. Here in NY the Romanists seem to be the only ones willing to stand for anything. They just barred a "conservative" congressman, who had much evanjellyfish support because he "stood with Pres Bush", from speaking at a school because of his prodeath politics. I was amazed at how many Christians in my area reacted to my support of Peroutka in the last election. I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would come under such fire from my brothers and sisters in Christ for not supporting a man who bowed to Buddhist idols, was soft on abortion, and prayed to the same god as Muslims.

Kids and Calves

Old Elsie had a lovely heifer calf this morning. Its a big one, with some white markings on its side. The calf is sired by a Just Wait son out of the EX 95 renaissance cow from Taylors. She calved out on the pasture so Little John and I had to walk a ways to see them after breakfast. We took a pail of "rejuvenate" which is a kind of fresh cow drink I mix up full of calcium and vitamins and minerals and things to get them off to good start. We also took a calf bottle with us. I like to be sure they at least get 2 quarts of colostrum in their bellies. After they drink that they can suck as much as they want from old mom. For a "not quite 3 year old" little John is a pretty good cow milker. We took turns milking her by hand into the calf bottle. We got all done and he says, "Give me that bottle, and I'll go feed that calf." Why not! I handed it to him and he went over and set the calf around in the right position and started feeding her. I sat back and enjoyed the sight of the next generation already learning the trade. If the little feller had grown up in "day care" he might have learned how to swear or flip you the bird by this age. Perhaps he would have learned about kids with 2 mommies or memorized a stupid Barney song. But that didn't happen! Our boys spend the whole day with mom and/or dad and learn our values and our business. Someday when someone asked, "Where you raised in a barn?" my children will proudly state "I sure was!"

Farm Sermons

The following are some quotes from the preface of CH Spurgeon's book, Farm Sermons. My friend John gave me a copy of this book shortly after we met. It has been a joy to own, every farmer needs a book full of good Farm Sermons.

Farmers should make brave Christians when grace renews them, for God is everywhere about them, and in his presence gracious souls are sure to thrive. Of old the Lord met men by the bush, the brook, and the well, and spake with them in the field, the threshing floor, and the sheep-fold; and he still seems closer in the country than in the grimy town.

More over the farmer is in a very special sense made to see his dependence upon God from season to season. He is never done; his labor never ending, still begining; and his hopes are never all fulfilled....This manifest, absolute, and daily dependence should help the good farmer to learn the lesson of faith right thoroughly. He must look up, for where else can he look? He must leave his business in the Lord's hands, for who else can be his helper? Faith which is daily tried, and tried all the day long, has a fair opportunity of becoming unusually strong, and hence our agricultural Christians ought to be the strongest believers in the land.

Odds n' Ends, Stuff to Read

There was a nice article in USA Today(no I don't read it, someone tipped me off) on Community Supported Agriculture that included the Local Harvest site I've talked about before.


There is a good post on the Backwater Report On CAFTA and Free Trade Idolatry. Its worth reading, his a snipet.....

In a previous lifetime, I hoped to become an economist, and was particularly influenced by the Misesian wing of the Austrian School. Consequently, there was a time when I was an ideological free trader.
At the end of the day, however, I concluded that the radical individualism at the heart of classical liberalism and contemporary libertarianism was incompatible with Christianity. I am neither a methodological individualist nor a Randian subjectivist, but a Christian covenentalist. Ultimately, free trade is the economic component of the liberal ideology. At the heart of free-trade doctrine is the notion that all things work together for the good of those who eliminate tariffs

In the world of books, Gene Logsdon has written a new one about grass based farming. The book is titled All Flesh Is Grass. Here is the description of it from ACRES USA......

Gene Logsdon explains that not only are well-managed pastures nutritious and palatable -- virtual salads for livestock -- but they also hold the soil, foster biodiversity, and create lovely landscapes. Grass farming may be the solution for a stressed agricultural system based on an industrial model and propped up by federal subsidies. In his clear and conversational style, Logsdon explains historically effective practices and new techniques. His warm, informative profiles of successful grass farmers offer inspiration and ideas. His narrative is enriched by his own experience as a "contrarian farmer" on his artisan-scale farm near Upper Sandusky, Ohio. All Flesh Is Grass will have broad appeal to the sustainable commercial farmer, the home food producer, and all consumers who care about their food.

For those interested in small scale envirementally friendly hog farming, here is an article called Alternative Hog Production Systems from the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education site. This one called Profitable Pork was also interesting.

Milk Fever, The Phone, and The Book

Milk Fever

What a day! I got up late and then found one of our most valuable cows almost dead with milk fever. Spent an hour doctoring her before I could start milking. Four bottles of calcuim latter, she is up and eating. She is a granddaughter of the great Aron cow from Meri-Acres. Aron was EX 96 and holds the world record for lifetimes production. She lived to be twenty some years old and was the grand champion at the All-American in her younger years. My cow is a Jude out of Aron's 92 point Abe daughter. She just calved in with a nice hiefer calf by Ressurection. Anyhow, this whole deal kinda messed up my day.

Phone

We got the phone hooked up yesterday! This is my first post from the hill top homestead, no more remote blogging for me. We had to run our own line around the house. Little John said he was going to help becouse he "wanted to learn supin' ". I was proud of the little guy, he learned how to splice wires and he even helped tape them up. Not bad for a not quite 3 year old. The number up here for any one wishing to call us is 607-692-3294.

The Book

As you might have guessed I haven't had a chance to read much more. Last night I started and John wanted to play with his baby chicks, so the "family friendly farmer" put down the book and we talked about chickens for the rest of the night! I will get back to commenting on it soon, it is very good stuff.

Family Friendly Farming

Those of you who wondered, I did take Mr. Kimball's offer to borrow his copy of Family Friendly Farming by Joel Salatin. I found it in the mailbox yesterday and began reading it last night. This is quite a book. I have only got through the forward, intro, and chapter 1 and I'm already going to endorse this book. Joel's vision of multigenerational agrarian business is a breath of fresh air. Though it is written from a farmers perspective, the ideas would work for any local family business. We all know that family farms are an endangered group, but really farmers in general are a shrinking group. Salatin points out that the census no longer even counts farmers. It counts homeless people, single mothers, nursing home occupants, but not farmers. There just aren't enouph of us left to even matter. A question to ponder is this. Is there a correlation between the decrease in farms and the increase in the undesirable groups mentioned? I think so. The family farm, with its focus on God and family, was part of the glue that held us together. The Church, the farm, the local community all made the "good ole days" good. I will be writing more about this book as I read it. I look forward to doing both! We might get the phone hooked up today. If so I can move the 'puter, as little John calls it, up on the hill and have more time to write. There are a few things in chapter one I want to touch on as soon as I get more time.

Changing the Rules

I just read an editoral in a dairy magazine about "show cattle". The article said, "How many times have you stood at ringside and said, that cow would never last in my freestall barn." They then came up with the idea that the true type model should change so they look more like "regular" free stall cows. Now just wait a darn minute here. Ever think there might be something wrong with the free stall barns and not the cow. I have trouble being lectured about cow survival by a bunch of folks have cull rates higher than 30%. The true type models were made by men who knew alot more about cows then the current group of people that call themselves dairymen. If you want to own a bunch of chicken chested, round boned, fat, sausage shaped, ugly uddered index cattle; be my guest! But just face up to the fact that you own UGLY cattle and quit trying to change the rules so you can win.

In the future I will post on type traits and why they matter.

Stuff to Read and What We're Doing

A few things to read

I liked RC JR's latest post called The Wars Within Our Walls . Here is a taste......

It ought to demonstrate my own indebtedness to Anabaptist living that one of the internal purpose statements we used to use here at the Highlands Study Center was that we exist, “to help the anabaptist’s think like the Reformed and the Reformed live life the Anabaptists.” It has long been my contention that Anabaptists get high marks for living, if not talking, in a covenantal manner. These folks tend to raise their children in the context of their convictions. The husbands, more often than not, are the heads of their homes. They rightly eschew the wisdom and practices of the world. On the other hand, their theology is, as one might expect from radical Reformers, a-historical and leans well to the left. (And if this doesn’t describe you, well then it doesn’t describe you and you have nothing to complain about.)

We who are Reformed, on the other hand, tend to practice a delicate balance of a sold-out commitment to the Bible without in turn denying the fifth commandment. We honor our fathers, and recognize that while the church is continuing to reform, God didn’t abandon the church from 70 AD to this hour. We learn from our fathers, just as our fathers during the Reformation learned from their fathers. Reformed folk, on the other hand, tend to more embrace the world and its wisdom. Our lives are virtually indistinguishable from the world around us.

Rick had a good post this week on An example of Christian community. Its about a group of folks from NY City that moved away and built an agrarian community. If you haven't read it yet, I think you'll want to.

I liked Chad's post, Let’s Play Church! Pastor Thomas C. McConnell had some interesting comments.

What we're doing

We planted that apple tree last night. Little Noah kept throwing the dirt back down the hole as fast as I was digging it out. I moved a springing heifer over to the milk cow barn yesterday afternoon before milking. She is out of one of our home bred bulls. The queen of the herd, the one and only Elsie, will calve this month. She is 13 years old now. Little John likes her couse she lets him ride her. The chicks are growing fast, already have wing feathers. We got some railroad ties to make raised beds for strawberries. This might be the last Sunday we have church at the feed mill. I kinda liked having it there. I need to get working on the pig fence pretty soon. They tell me the phone will be working by Tue, but I'll believe it when I hear a dial tone! I'm getting exited about going to Virginia, even got me a road atlas the other day when I was in town. I haven't been on a real road trip in a long time. I'm thinking that if I'm going to be in Virginia on a Saturday I'll never be any closer to Bristol on a Sunday, so we might try to make it there for worship.

Hey, You remember the time......

I don't know why I thought of this story or why I feel compelled to put it on here. I guess it was hearing that old Hank SR song while milking, but I'm not sure. Anyway, I was 17 I think. The work was done and I was getting ready to go have some fun. Mother was doing the dishes while I put on my boots and headed out the door. I fired up the old truck and headed out to Nate and Ethans. The truck was a sight to see, an orange 78 GMC with rust holes in the doors. The floor had a big hole in it. I was proud of that hole and used to brag that you could spit through it in the winter when it was to cold to open the window. I was headed out to do some blacksmithing with the boys. We were taking a break from our ussual evening activity of ressurecting old farmalls and horse drawn sickle bar mowers. I loved blacksmithing. We had a nice shop there that we built from scratch. We even made the beams from logs Ethan had cut. I remember stopping to get gas. I bought $5 worth which was a good mess of gas back then. I also bought a pouch of chewing tobacco, I don't recall what kind. The music was Hank, steel guitar and twang. The tape player worked if you stuck a flat head screwdriver in under the tape to prop it up a little. I pulled into the their drive when it was still light out. The chickens, half a dozen or so, were scratching around the shed. The old guernsey cow was eating grass in the back pasture. Mother was out in the garden wearing in a long dress, as always. The windmill was spinning pretty good, they made their own power by the way. Along the drive way there was a row new fence posts. 4 strands of barbed wire were streched tight, shining in the sun. I stoped the truck there where I alwas did. Mother was hollorin' to the men folk. Father came running from the shop like it was on fire. Ethan came out of the cow barn on a dead run. They each grabed a chunk of split firewood and stuck it under my back wheels. You see, that new row of fence posts hadn't been there long. We put em up the night before. I had parked my truck and walked to the barn. The truck popped out of park and rolled at fast pace down the driveway then off the driveway. It snaped off half a dozen posts before it stopped!

Whats growing and Where I'm Going

It has warmed up a bit out here. The peas started peaking through the dirt. Not to much longer and we can start planting some other stuff. The blueberries are doing pretty good. I just got a new apple tree to plant. I'm a big fan of the Macs. I found a disease resistant tree that was developed here in NY. They call it the MacFree. It is on sale right now, you might want to give it a try. I hope to get it planted soon. We moved calves today from the "nursery" area over to the calf barn across the road. The big ones I had to lead and the little ones we hauled on the golf cart. We have had quite a few heifer calves this year. We are working on a new system for the calves on milk. They are now going to have access to grass like everyone else. They will have a bedded pack to come into when they want and at feeding time. We think they will be healthier and happier outside and learn to be better graziers when they grow up. It looks like I might be going to the Salatin farm for the shinding in July. I haven't left the farm for an overnight trip in several years. Now that my folks are in poor health I can't leave very often anymore. Dad said I should take the family and go if I want to. He is going to hire someone to take my place. Well, to do my work anyway. So barring any great injuries or disasters I should be able to go. I know, I know, I finally take a vacation and where do I go........another farm. I'm hopeless.

The Sin of Birth Control and The Death of The Family Farm

The notion that "labor saving devices" are a blessing is largely accepted today. The notion that that large families are a curse (in deed if not in words) is also accepted by many. As a farmer, I must challenge this mindset. I have been a lover of old barns for most of my life. Today they are hated by the progressive farmers as inefficient and old fashion. Remnants of a time when farmers were ignorant folks. I often have wondered how the old timers did it all. The barns are neat but require a lot of labor to get the work done. The crops were put up by hand and they milked almost as many cows as I do. When I was a boy I would ask the old guys how they got it all done. "We had a large family" they would say. It was easy to get the work done because many hands make for light work. The work was more enjoyable as well. 6 or 8 family members working together on a job, talking and joking around. Sure beats sitting in a lonely tractor cab for 10 hours cultivating beans or corn the modern way. The way I see it, none of the labor saving devices that have made us lonely, poor, overproducers and killers of the soil would have ever come about if we hadn't made the decision to limit children. The sin of birth control has killed the family farm. Our judgment for hating our own fertility has been the end of our farms fertility. The idea that the old timers were ignorant fools for having large families is pagan to the core. "That stupid mountain woman's got 10 kids." The moderns figure she's to stupid to realize that having sex will make you pregnant. We must remember that obeying God will always look foolish to the world. Somehow I think even in the 1700s people knew how babies were made and could probably figure out creative ways to prevent it. Lets not buy the lie that they were stupid underevolved creatures......a little Darwinistic ain't it. Only the moderns could look back to a time when farms were happy and profitable and call it bad. Then turn around and say a bunch of debt ridden, unhappy, childless farms are "God's gift to the world".

Fences and Milk

The Fence

Its never a good sign when a stranger comes in the barn during morning milking. It happened on the Lord's Day. Sometimes its a guy out of gas, someone that hit a critter, or someone to drunk to find their way home. This guys son went off the road at drove through my new 5 strand high tensil fence! These fences are built like a brick sh....outhouse. He went through it and broke off a post. The fence just bounced back in place and set the broken post back in its spot. This poor fool couldn't figure out how to get out. He told me he was going to cut the wires. I informed him he was not. Then he got stuck in the mud. We took the tractor over to pull him out and he still wanted to cut the wires. We pointed out the gate! After all this he says "I don't know what the big deal is about this fence, its just a fence. I could fix it." Somehow I don't think a man that can't idenify a gate is going to be able to fix the fence, so we send him on his way. The whole time this guys here, he acts like we did something wrong by owning a fence. It was in his way, you know.

Milk Comes From Where?

The other day a fellow brought his son over at milking time to prove that milk comes from cows. The boy was skeptical. I asked him where he thought it came from. He said, "Sea Weed". "Sea Weed! Who in the world told you that?" his father said. "My teacher" the boy replies, "And I saw it on TV". Before he left a rooster walked by the barn door. I hear the lad ask, "Do chickens give milk too?" Folks, you can't make this stuff up!