am I using the wrong words?

Things I've been asked for this week

What's a 3-point hitch?
from a guy who spent the last 20 minutes telling me about this expensive tractor.

What's a bushel?
From a self-proclaimed apple harvesting expert.

What kind of goat is that?
when pointing to a Cotswold sheep = from a self-proclaimed sheep expert.  

In Colorado where I live I heard someone with big hair and a Texas accent ask how old do those dears have to be before they turned into elks? Not typical of many Texans but there is a percentage.

Those are pretty sad examples I must say, but:

One time as I came out of a Vet with a baby lamb a woman asked me what kind of dog I had as it had unique fur?

Some PETA people protesting front of a Milk case with signs that read, "Save the Cows?"...jeesh I had no ideas you killed cows for the milk?

An animal welfare group showed a video of a farmer moving a dead cow by a tractor and were horrified. Let me ask you, how else is a farmer going to move a 2000 pound animal...by dragging it out by hand?

A woman wrote in complaining about farmers killing animals and asked why don't we buy our meat from the grocery store like she does?

I could go on, but with only 1/2 a percent of the population (1 out of 200 people) being farmers, there is a major disconnect from where food comes from today.

As for weights and measures, that is really easy to explain; times are changing. I have cut wood all my life, am a certified logger and everything, but I have always dealt in cords of wood. Today the wood market has changed to tons. It is hard for me to convert from cords to tons after years of logging. It is conceivable to think that apples would now be sold by the hundred weight instead of by the bushel.

I cannot defend the sheep expert though!

I know very little about tractors.  So maybe I'm not using the right vocabulary?

PTO - thing that makes motion transfer from tractor to the gadget on the back (or front?) of the tractor?  

3-point hitch - three points where gadget attaches to the tractor.  Different from the 2 point hitch we had on the tractor from the 1940s.  

These are normal tractor words, right?

On the upside, I had four strangers arrive at my farm yesterday.  They all knew what the word 'permaculture' was.  

Travis Johnson wrote: It is conceivable to think that apples would now be sold by the hundred weight instead of by the bushel.

It was hard enough to convert between hundred weight and bushels along with acres versus hectares.  For the estimation of mass, I've gone more metric and just use the general paramenter of "one metric shitload" as the starting point.....not really knowing for sure how that compares to "one British dungheap"....

r ranson wrote:  PTO - thing that makes motion transfer from tractor to the gadget on the back (or front?) of the tractor?  

3-point hitch - three points where gadget attaches to the tractor.  Different from the 2 point hitch we had on the tractor from the 1940s.

Yes...that is correct.  Most if not all 'proper' tractors have a rear PTO with some having a front PTO as well.  A major lament in my opinion is the multiple speed PTOs of many of the 'grey market' (for US consumer) small tractors which I think are generally only found on larger tractors in the US, multiple speeds giving more versatility.  

Words for Weights and measures are a joy to me
I can still remember
Inches to Feet to yards to chains to poles to furlongs to miles
Grains to ounces to pounds to stones to quarters to hundredweight to tons
Even to old money ,farthings to penny's to shillings to pounds to guineas

David

John Weiland wrote:I've gone more metric and just use the general paramenter of "one metric shitload" as the starting point.....not really knowing for sure how that compares to "one British dungheap"....

I love it...sounds about what I would say.

The sad thing today is, everything has to be all scientific in farming? Really? My grandfather never took soil samples every 3 years from every field at $16 a test. Nope, he looked at what the soil had for sward, tasted the weeds...yes tasted them, then figured out what he needed for soil amendments. Thankfully he passed that on to me. I still take soil tests, but most of the time it just confirms what I already knew. Inverted yellow leaves...nitrogen, milkweed means the land needs more phosphorous, and smooth bedstraw...better add some lime.

It is the same with sheep; people have been raising them for 9000 years. When the vet suggested we Ultrasound the pregnant ewes after breeding season, I scoffed. The cost just did not justify what would be gained...not to mention how simple sheep breeding is.

I mean, if you look out the window and see two sheep with only 6 hooves on the ground, then 5 minutes later the ewe has a pack of Marlborough's rolled up under the wool of her fore leg, merrily puffing away on a cigarette; a smile on the ram's face...trust me, you know they will have lambs in 145 days. Yep, pretty simple.