I'm Versatile, Apparently

All the way back in May the estimable Mercy was kind enough to award me for my versatility in blogging (specifically, for unwittingly co-founding National Cow Week) but I didn't get around to it till just now.

Shnazzy.

These are the rules:
1. Thank and link to the person who nominated you.
2. Share seven random facts about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 5 deserving blogging buddies.
4. Contact those buddies to congratulate them!

1. Thanks, Mercy!

2. Seven Random Facts:
a) My closet is almost as large as my room.
b) I've been to New York City twice. The first time was five weeks after 9/11.
c) When I was twelve, I taught my pony the hokey pokey.
d) My favorite ice cream is Breyer's mint chocolate chip.
e) I sing the alphabet whenever I look up a word in the dictionary or put a new book on the shelf.
f) I cannot bring myself to spend money. Besides gift cards, I think I've only spent a sum larger than five or ten dollars twice in my life. The first time I bought a cockatiel, and the second time a horse.

3. I award...
Skyeler, because she swaps from regency gowns to photography to poetry.
Kayla, because she has a variety of interests (many of which I share *highfive*).
Sarah, because she has all sorts of inspiring posts.
Bubbles, because I predict his blog will be versatile and profound, if he posts.
Olga, because between her and Curly Fry, they have many different areas covered. ;)
Birdi, because she never fails to make me smile. :D
I have so many deserving blogging buddies I had to choose six! And there were more I could have picked if they weren't already tagged.

4. And now I scuttle off to notify people!

The Holey Cow

It's the last day of National Cow Week. I had intended to post a cow story every day, but then Life tried to kidnap me, and the ensuing struggle made posting rather difficult.

Though it's still nipping at my heels, I think I can be free long enough to hastily put together a Cow Week finale. You'll have to bear through mediocre to poor writing, because it's difficult to be coherent while keeping Life at bay.


My dad majored in agricultural something something economics. In one class, he and his classmates had to work with a fistulated cow.

Photo found here.

Essentially, a fistulated cow is a cow with a hole in its side. If I remember correctly, they use it to extract bacteria from the cow's stomach and give it to sick cows. Or they do research. Or something. I'm sure Wikipedia the Omniscient possesses more information if you're interested.

In this class, the students donned long rubber gloves and inserted their arms into the cow's stomach. Then, the cow in question startled suddenly, sloshing its stomach content onto an unfortunate student.

Cow insides. On the student. Need I say more?

Ick.


With that, I will have to bring my Cow Week post to a close, as Life lingers threateningly.

With forty-five minutes left, I wish you a happy National Cow Week!

Holy Cow

It's rather late, but I feel compelled to post a cow post each day for National Cow Week, so I'm stringing together a very short and rather uninteresting one.

Where I used to live there was a big fair we went to every fall. While the main attraction for me was the horse shows, there was a large barn lined with rows and rows of cattle in all different breeds and colors. While I was admiring a particularly pretty Jersey cow, one little boy pointed and exclaimed, "Holy cow, look at that cow!"

You Know You Live in the Country When...

National Cow Week starts today!

I confess I completely forgot about it until ten or twenty minutes ago. Shame on me. Anyway, since it's late, and I have things to do, I'll just copy the cow story that started it all from my post on Embracing Insanity.



The morning began quiet and peaceful like most mornings, and, like all mornings, I was on the computer catching up on all I missed in my virtual social life during the seven-and-a-half hours I slept. In the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of movement out the window, and behold, I saw my pony galloping down the pasture. Indeed, all the horses were agitated, snorting and bobbing their heads as they stared intently, ears pricked, at something in the woods.

I mentioned this to my mom, and we went to the window and peered out to see what the horses were looking at. It was a windy morning, and wind tends to induce friskiness in horses, so I wouldn't have thought much of it except that there was apparently a specific object that had excited them.

And then we saw him--a man, clad in overalls, meandering through the woods at the back of our property.

I was a little creeped out. I'm a rather paranoid person, with an extremely morbid imagination, having watched a few episodes too many of First 48 and American Justice and the like, and I was thinking, This guy's a serial killer. He's a serial killer and what we can't see for the darkness of the forest is the body he's dragging and he's going to see us in the window and come into the house and carve out our bowels slowly with a samurai sword and my dad's going to come home from work to find my small intestine strewn across the house like party streamers.

Yeah. Like I said, I have a really morbid imagination. And then the guy started running. And I was thinking, Okay, no body. He dumped it somewhere and he's running from the police...

He turned and ran toward the street, so we hurried to the front windows and waited for him to appear around the corner. Instead, a herd of cattle came trotting down the road. A moment later, the man followed after them, chasing a few stragglers who cantered back to the group.

We were rolling with laughter. This wasn't a murderer, but a farmer collecting his runaway cattle!

There were ten to fifteen of them, and they turned onto a sidestreet and paused in someone's backyard. The farmer caught his breath a minute, then they continued into the neighborhood and out of sight.

You know you live in the country when a herd of cattle stampedes in front of your house.

National Cow Week 2011

That's right. May 15-21 is National Cow Week, people!

Just what is National Cow Week, you ask? Inspired by the comments here, it's a week dedicated to sharing stories about our lowing bovine friends.


And guess what? We need your cow story! Whether it be a story about cows being somewhere they shouldn't, cows doing something unnatural, someone being scared of cows, we want it! If your story is even remotely related to cows (including the stuffed or Chick-fil-A kind) we want you to share it.

"But Olivia," you say, "I have no cow story! I've thought and thought and thought, and I can't think of anything that's ever happened to me that's at all related to cows! What can I do to help the cow cause?"

Ask around! Your grandmother, neighbor, or dentist might have a tale to share. Still nothing? Make it up!

"But... why?" you ask. "This is really weird." Well, okay, it sort of is weird, but hey! What's wrong with that? "But," you counter, "this is just so pointless." It is not pointless! There's meaning... somehow! I mean, they're cows! They're so cute! Look at that nose:

Don't you just want to smother that big wet slimy nose with kisses? Don't deny it. You know you want to.

Anyway. Back on topic. If you don't have a blog, that's okay! Tell everyone--friends, family, coworkers, your violin teacher, dishwasher repairman, random people walking down the street--about National Cow Week. Hopefully, this will be the first annual National Cow Week.

We'd love it if you'd email me at ponytales910 [at] ymail [dot] com or Mercy at mercy_vaughn [at] yahoo [dot] com to tell you're participating and let us know about anyone else you held at Super Soaker point convinced to join in the fun.