How Now, Brown Cow

It has been a long time since my last post. I have been working on two books. Just self-published one called "Fun and Games." Still writing and trying to finish a book of information about the towns in the Finger Lakes area of New York State.

Shopping over the holidays has really jolted me into an awareness of how much food costs now. Imagine paying $1.50 for a small can of soup. Bread, eggs and milk are so much more expensive. When I was young, we drank raw milk straight from the cow. Sometimes we even helped to "extract" it. Mother made our own whipped topping - from scratch. After the milk sat awhile, we skimmed the thick cream from the top and it whipped up better than any store-bought cream. On occasion, I was allowed to help my grandmother churn the butter. Work is exercise you don't like to do. Exercise is work you like to do. The only thing that distinguishes work from pleasure is which activity you prefer.

Do you remember when oleo was white? There was a small bubble of coloring in the package and we had to keep squeezing it and working it with our hands until it was all colored yellow.

Some years ago a neighbor came to borrow some newspapers from my niece. He wanted them to dry off the udders of his cows after milking, as paper towels wouldn't do. I saw a bumper sticker recently which read, "Drink milk - the udder uncola." I have read that the average life span of a cow is twenty-five years. Also - the number of inches in the girth of a cow is the number of pounds of its weight. Cows swing like weather vanes to face the wind. Otherwise, the wind roughs up their fur and they don't like it. They will face any which way on windless days.

Holy Cow. I think I have said enough.