The "This Might Be A Stupid Question, But...." Thread

[ladyknight1]

I replaced an underwire once. I just unpacked some of the seam that was encasing it, pulled it out, fed a new one in and stitched it up. I never felt that it was as comfortable again though, but maybe I did it wrong or had the wrong sized wire. Can't hurt to try, I guess.

Just realized it punctured the fabric when the wire broke. I will be going shopping for a replacement next week!

[Virg]

Betelnut wrote:

"Why is cleaning a car called "detailing" instead of, say, "cleaning a car"?"

Detailing can include anything from basic cleaning up to and including tearing out the whole interior down to the frame and rebuilding it or stripping the exterior of the car and redoing it, so "detailing" is really a superset of cleaning, and an auto detailer who just does a basic cleaning will still call it "detailing" the car.  Most people who use such services don't want to pay for more than basic cleaning, but for the right price a detailer can handle things like trim repair or fixing seats or customizing the dashboard and such.

Virg

[Betelnut]

A stupid question generated from another thread:

Why DO farmers need to get up pre-dawn to milk cows or whatever?  If you milk a cow twice a day, why can't you do it at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.? 

I understand that a lot of work needs to be done and you don't want to waste daylight but it has never made sense to me that cows "need" to be milked at 4:30 a.m.  Sleep cow, sleep.

[GreenEyedHawk]

How do you stop brown sugar going all hard?

[Diane AKA Traska]

How do you stop brown sugar going all hard?

As silly as it sounds... put a slice of white bread in with it. Cover the bread as much as you can.

I swear this works.

[squeakers]

A stupid question generated from another thread:

Why DO farmers need to get up pre-dawn to milk cows or whatever?  If you milk a cow twice a day, why can't you do it at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.? 

I understand that a lot of work needs to be done and you don't want to waste daylight but it has never made sense to me that cows "need" to be milked at 4:30 a.m.  Sleep cow, sleep.

If you only milk for yourself you can get away with it.  But if you are milking as a business then you are running on the schedule set by the milk trucks.  And their schedule is set by the processing team at the processing center. Most of those jobs will be the 7 AM to 3 PM/3 PM-11 PM/11 PM to 7 AM types so the milk has to be there for those people to work with it.

Which means the time for the trucks to do their rounds and the time it takes to actually get milk from the cows -udders cleaned, machine hooked up, wait... do 10 more cows or however many at a time they have the machines for. 4:30 AM to 7 or 8 AM is not all that much time.

And then the same thing happens for the night shift.

Now some farms might have earlier than 4:30 AM pick-ups, some  might have later than 7 AM depending on how big the routes are and how big the dairies are. And same for the night pick-ups.

Reading this article suggests most farms can store milk now so at least you don't have to do the night ones as quickly (the rushing that used to be done).  But the cows will be lowing to be milked so you can't put it off too long from their normal milking time. http://articles.philly.com/1993-03-17/news/25948857_1_dump-milk-heifer-barn-leonard-crooke

[Slartibartfast]

A stupid question generated from another thread:

Why DO farmers need to get up pre-dawn to milk cows or whatever?  If you milk a cow twice a day, why can't you do it at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.? 

I understand that a lot of work needs to be done and you don't want to waste daylight but it has never made sense to me that cows "need" to be milked at 4:30 a.m.  Sleep cow, sleep.

Dairy farms are actually huge employers of migrant workers (primarily hispanic), because nobody else wants the job of "milk cows at 4 AM, noon, and 8 PM."  Sure, milking may be an eight-hour day, but it's split into three chunks eight hours apart!  Cows now produce a huge amount of milk - a lot more than ye olde family cow might have done a few hundred years ago - and consequently need to be milked more often and for longer than just "dawn and dusk."  There are some fully automated milking machines - the cow wanders into the stall and the machine does all the work - but they're expensive and you generally still need a human being to oversee the operation anyway.

[Elisabunny]

Also, in days gone by, milking took very little light to accomplish, plus it was probably one of the less unpleasant chores to do in the deep cold of early morning (DH tells of warming his hands on the cow), so it made sense to get it out of the way early.

[Yvaine]

Also, in days gone by, milking took very little light to accomplish, plus it was probably one of the less unpleasant chores to do in the deep cold of early morning (DH tells of warming his hands on the cow), so it made sense to get it out of the way early.

And maybe you wanted milk for breakfast!

[Ser Lucien Liliane]

How do you stop brown sugar going all hard?

POD the bread. You can also put in a slice of apple (which will then go brown and mushy, I don't recommend it) or buy a terracotta disk specially made for this sort of thing. Bread's easiest, though.

[turtleIScream]

How do you stop brown sugar going all hard?

Make a lot of cookies

I actually use the heels from my bread, since no one will eat those anyway.

[Elfmama]

How do you stop brown sugar going all hard?

Make a lot of cookies

I actually use the heels from my bread, since no one will eat those anyway.

Keep it in an airtight container, and you won't need the bread.  I have one from Tupperware that is just the right size to hold a pound of brown sugar.  Its mate holds raisins.   I'm not sure, but I think you do have to go to the slightly more expensive containers, Tupperware or Rubbermaid.  The cheapies from Ziplock or Glad aren't completely airtight.

[marcel]

A stupid question generated from another thread:

Why DO farmers need to get up pre-dawn to milk cows or whatever?  If you milk a cow twice a day, why can't you do it at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.? 

I understand that a lot of work needs to be done and you don't want to waste daylight but it has never made sense to me that cows "need" to be milked at 4:30 a.m.  Sleep cow, sleep.

I personaly think that a lot of it has to do with habit and not wanting to work after 6 pm.

Anyway, on a modern big dairy farm nobody has to get up to milk the cows anymore, it is fully automated. The cows just regularly walk into the milking machine, and the rest goes automaticaly, the farmer just has to have a beeper with him that warns him when something goes wrong with the machine.

[squeakers]

A stupid question generated from another thread:

Why DO farmers need to get up pre-dawn to milk cows or whatever?  If you milk a cow twice a day, why can't you do it at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.? 

I understand that a lot of work needs to be done and you don't want to waste daylight but it has never made sense to me that cows "need" to be milked at 4:30 a.m.  Sleep cow, sleep.

I personaly think that a lot of it has to do with habit and not wanting to work after 6 pm.

Anyway, on a modern big dairy farm nobody has to get up to milk the cows anymore, it is fully automated. The cows just regularly walk into the milking machine, and the rest goes automaticaly, the farmer just has to have a beeper with him that warns him when something goes wrong with the machine.

Maybe in the Netherlands but here in Iowa it's still pretty much farmers hooking up the machines. http://wcfcourier.com/business/local/mechanical-milkers-robots-improve-efficiency-for-ne-iowa-dairies/article_57e71614-e8b1-11e1-9cbe-001a4bcf887a.html "ISU experts estimate about 30 dairy farms statewide — about 15 in Northeast Iowa — out of 1,600 use robots."

[Cherry91]

Can anyone link me to a "cheat sheet" of EHell's abbreviations and acronyms? I've looked a couple of times and can't find anything.

If not, can someone tell me what POD stands for? I can work out most, but this one stumps me!