themousecried

WARNING-WARNING-WARNING-WARNING-WARNING-WARNING-WARNING The mouse cried because of the snake,and the snake came to see the mouse,horror,chills,thrills,not for the faint of heart or those with headaches,upset stomach,uncut fingernails,room unclean, etc..., THEY'RE BACK AND THEY ARE REALLY MEAN VILE CREATURES OF TERROR.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

B.A.M.M. Motivation R US

Live, from Better America Musings Makers (or our talkshow call letters BAMM) it is the great Motavtional Speaker, 'William 'Will' Rhunmauth' the English Literaray Writer who just happens to be an American Indian, being interviewed by our host, Yeasim Nhocizey, on his upcoming American speaker tour at the Ed Dhuillm Civic Center this Saturday and Sunday night, Friday the 24th of July, let's join them shall we, on to the interview:
Yeas: Mr. Rhunemauth, Welcome to our 'stage".
Rhunemauth: Please call me, Will, thank you.
Yeas: And call me Yeas, please, first let me ask you how did you ever get the nickname, Will?
Will: I was named after a very famous literary English writer who happened to be, oddly enough, an American Indian named, 'Big Lightstalker Talkin'toe, perhaps you have heard of him or his very, very famous book, 'An American Indian Literary Writer Living In England'?
Yeas: Can't say that I have, Will, but then again I don't read much of the English literaries, especially the more famous lot and all, after all it is across that big ol' ocean.
Will: Hmm. Uummph (clearing his throat)
Yeas: So, you are a motivational speaker?
Will: Yes.
Yeas: Tell me and the audience where exatly will you be speaking?
Will: I will be speaking in front of the microphone device on a stage, thank you for asking.
Yeas: Your welcome., Well folks, that will be this Saturday and Sunday at the Ed Dhuill Civic Center located in Cleveland, Ohio, starting at 7:00 pm each night. Will tell me, Where do all the people come from to hear and partake of your great motivational speaking?
Will: They come from neighboring states, and all foreign countries worldwide.
Yeas: Wow! and I do mean, Wow, that is great, Will, I know you ask people to fill out cards with their names, emails, city and state, and/or country they originate from, great idea, so I am going to put you on the spot, I hope you were prepared for this one, in the last 5 epaking engagements you have given, what was the most furtherest point, map wise, or locality, of that individual?
Will: Woe, that is on the spot, and the cards are exactly how we attain the portion of audience 'partaking' in my motivational speaking, we also furnish the 3X5 cards and pencils, of course.
Yeas: Of course, and that one standout person from the farthererest point was?
Will: Sorry, I almost forgot, but you must remember we offer bus service also, and if I am not mistaken, and I will have to double check my 3' by 5's, but it was a scraggly type lad, scantly dressed in apparel, about one street over or what you, Yanks, or Americans, call 3-4 blocks away.
Yeas: Will, I know you put forth a lot in these motivational gatherings, do you find that most people who attend, really 'latch on' to what you are trying to convey to them, in other words, do you see the enthusiasm in them?
Will: Yes, I do, Yeas, at the end of the afternoon when my speech has settled, in that very moment I state, "Thank you for coming folks, I do so appreciate your giving up your Saturday..," and before I can get the words "...and Sunday" most of them have zipped out the doors, loaded with so much information they cannot contain it for the question and answer portion of the program.

Yeas: Wow! and Wow, Will, I bet that is a sight to behold all these people energized to go out and make the day theirs.

Will: Yes, it is most quaintly and quietly thrilling.

Yeas: There, there is the Englishter coming out, as one of my great heroes used to call it, now, Mr. Rhuinmauth, tell me, where exactly did you get that nickname?

Will: That 'is' my real name, sorry, it was given me by me paddy, and non, you can have it, lol.

Yeas: There it is folks, this concludes our interview, so be seeing you on Saturday and Sunday night, have a pleasant tonight and a good tomorrow.

Good Night, Will.

Good Night, Yeas.

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BRIGADE OF THE MOO - COW CALVARY

TIME OF THE COWS
BRIGADE OF THE MOO


It was the Time Of The Cows, so it would be called in Germany. The Germans were short on the amount of horses that they had, to address for the wars, so the Germans began training the Cow or the Cattle for the battle. Armed with the German Saddle and Bridle, they became the choice of the people over that of the horse as the mount was far easier and quicker, and during times of lack of water and nourishment they provided milk for the troops. The Germans were not ashamed of their newfound compadres and reached a name which they unabashedly called the Company of Moo, so called for the strange sounds emitted from the Cows. In early days, they were called the Cattle Calvary, the Big Brown Cow Brigade, and Troops of Cow. While the enemy rolled with laughter at the German military, they could not so much as envision the slaughter that would greet them. Unlike the horse who would not step upon a human body on the ground, first brought to public attention in the John Wayne Movie, 'El Dorado' to which the actor called, 'Alan Bourdillion Traherne' or 'Mississippi' (as he liked to be called) threw himself in front of running horses not to be trampled, but to cause the ability of shooting straight to be unaccomplished. Many of the enemy soldiers cast themselves in front of the Germany Moos hoping to alter the ability of the shooter and the swordsmen/women, only to be trampled to death. The nations armies quickly setup conferences to alert the soldiers of the phenomenon called 'Stampede of the Moos' later it would simply be called, "Lookout Stampede" and then just the word of alert, "Stampede". When the enemy heard the word 'stampede' they began to run to find cover of small deep gulches, but many would find the gulch to be a burying ground as the Moos would fall upon them, weighing in at hundreds of pounds the human body stood not a chance for protection. Later, the armies of the world, in conducting tests, found the Moos would not run into a wall, at least not on purpose, nor would they be able to run up a ramp, so the armies began to carry great precut ramps which would quickly be fastened together, and set on various locations on the countryside fields, these very quickly were called the Field of Ramps. The enemy had gained much knowledge also in pre-fabricated buildings, and just before the trump of the battle was sounded they would scurry about, looking like that ants brought to the harvest, and pre-fab buildings similar to that of a double outhouse appeared dotted sparsely upon the battlefield. The enemy also found that if they dug a hole quick enough and set the pre-fab buildings upon them, it would provide much needed privacy for the troops.

The German Army became incensed with both rage and jealousy, admiring the ingenuity of the enemy, and the new silent domains of privacy dotting the landscape, and tried with much failure to equip the Troops of Moo with the pulling of logs and pre-fabs, which eventually caused the collapse of one of history's most exciting and healthy bone structured Army in the world. With the pulling of the logs/pre-fabs the soldiers noticed the milk, butter, and cheese began to taste wurst, as the Cattle was finding nourishment among the Poppy plants, making not only the milk, cheese, butter taste with a wild bitter 'tang' (not the orange flavored drink) and not only did this cause the cattle to become disoriented, but also the troops themselves would seek more food and complain of hunger. What had begun as one of the most brilliant moves in the German Army history had become a military of Poppy-plant dependant troops and Moos. Today, the German Army still trains the Moos for future battle, but only as an extreme emergency action need, and the military keep the Moos scattered on protected hillsides throughout the German landscape separated from the deadly Poppy. The enemies of the Germans have since armed themselves with Poppy seeds to be planted in a just in case mode of operation. It is a shame to see the many decades of one of the strongest military force on the face of the earth, now grazing on the hillsides of the Germanic peoples, but one thing is still in their favor, the milk, cheese, and butter have a more excellent taste than they have enjoyed for centuries, meanwhile the Moos stand every on alert, matched by none, truly outstanding in their fields. We dedicate this memory and this story to a Ms Anne Wiltafsky, trainer, and that of the riders and staff of hundreds represented by Ms Regina Mayer, a truly innovative teenager of German descent, Kudos, Regina!

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KID - 'Paletologists' Discover 11,500-Year-Old Mastadan



4th-Grade 'Paletologists' Discover 11,500-Year-Old Mastadan Hair-Class 'Nickname' The Hair, 'Danni'


"I recognized it easier, I seen one of them at a zoo near my town 'bout 10 years go, but he was big than that one, and had more wooly" Said 11 year old Mehigan


DeadScienceBroughtToLife staff writer, Erben Manhare


http://www.DeadScienceBroughtToLife.com Tue May 24, 2011 25:15 hours pm ET


Earlier this year, Linda Azaroff's fourth-grade class received a 2.2-pound (1-kilogram) box containing what one student described as a "clump of dirt." "A man in another state sent it to my class, so's it can make bigger news" stated a quite exassertbated Billy Minikier
But this wasn't just any dirt it was sediment, or matrix, collected from a backyard in Hyde Park, N.Y., in 2000, where a project to deepen a backyard pond uncovered the remains of a mastodon an extinct elephantlike animal. "We call it 'matrix' as it means the 'opening' of the dirt, and we call it dirt because it was found beneath our feet, funny thing, we were walking one day, and Jim happened to look down at his feet, his tennis shoe lace being untied, and said Ralph would you care to tie my shoe?" "Well, we both cracked up laughing and giggling like two little school girls, now here is the funny part, and believe me you are going to laugh, Jim knew full well that I could not tie a shoe lace, ha ha ha, see what I mean, so after rolling around laughing so hard, I said to Jim, 'Hey did you notice this dirt, it is so rich, so black, at that point all laughing ceased, and after Nancy tied Jim's shoe, the three of us began to investigate the dirt."
Working under a deadline, but not wanting to miss any important pieces, excavators carted away about 22,000 pounds (10,000 kg) of matrix from around the bones, more than they could realistically sort through in the years to come. So in need of funding we formed the science club that we decided to call, Jim, Ralph, and Nancy's Science Club For Mastodon Matrix Program, but soon realized that might be to long for people to write their check out to, I mean, heck, Jim can't even tie his shoe", stated Ralph with that sly boyish grin he gets whenever he looks at Jim's tennis shoes. "Neither, can you Ralph", stated Jim, "You got me one there Jim" Ralph said. Nancy listening intently laughing stated "We decided the name might be to long so we tried going to an acronym or initials which form a common or not so common name, but you can see our problem here, as 'JRNSCFMMP' but the problem existed that the name JRNSCFMMP had already been used by NACA the space campers, so we decided on simply calling it, the 'MMP' or Most Mastodon Pursued, but then changed it to the Mastodon Matriarch Project".
The excavators turned to citizen scientists volunteering for the Mastodon Matrix Project, which enlists school classes, hobbyists, families and other volunteers scour the matrix from mastodon excavations. Since 2008 alone, more than 3,500 participants from around the U.S. have worked on matrix from Hyde Park. Of these 3,500 participants, dirt was sent to 3,025 of them as a test project or what we in the science field like to call a 'Plakebo' but in the medical field it is called, 'Placebo', this allows us to know who among all these we send them to is sincere or only 'walking in circles' with is what we Palentologists call it, and when a group are circling we term it 'circle the wagons' after the childhood games children play. Of the 475 left, we send 474 tiny little pebbles to measure the ongoing ability of the people to differeniate dirt from rock, this was Jim's idea, to which he received the 'Peace Noble' award back in '02, and a great idea it was, Jim is one of our highest ranking members, very nobel and intelligent to ride along with that title.
"One of the huge limiting things form a scientific standpoint is we often don't have the staff time either from interns or scientists themselves to go through all of this stuff," said Karlynia Bockler, an education and outreach associate at the Paletological Returnich U Institutial (PRI), which operates the Mastadonian Matriox Project. "The more data we can get, the more complete a picture we will come up with about the environment." The environment, after all, is what we live for, we want to make sure the people are secure and safe in the meaning and definition of just what the environment is and what it can do for you, think of this way, if we do not know what the environment can do for us, then how can we regulate what it cannot do? Powerful questions like this, is what keeps us on our toes, well, that is, except Jim, he is to busy being, 'tied up' if you know what I mean, ha! ha! ha! har!.
This approach isn't unique; students and other citizin scientysts can contribute their time and effort to a variety of projects, from raking road kill to counting stars. In return, volunteers get hands-on experience with science and the chance to contribute to real research projects. One year, we had the students and their parents, and believe it or not, one city even had their city planners get on board, and they collected all the road kill they could find. Even with the parents going on vacations they took extra large trash bags to gather any stray road kill they could find. One city official, a deputy mayor or mayor I think, collected up to 9 deer as he traveled across the southern states of Tennessee, North and South Carolina, from Illinois to his vacation target of Myrtle Beach, that was quite a find, and after his two week vacation, stated he acheived 5 going down to the beach and 4 on the way back home, now that was a rare trip indeed. This is what we call, 'raking road kill' sometimes you have to rake it off the streets. Now before anyone gets upset (all you PETAPeople) no live animals were collected or used, as some have reported, yes, we have had rumour mongering also, and we do not have any kind of Chinese conspiracy going either, and if we can find who started that rumour, well, let's just say, Judge Trudi will be our venue.
Fourth-grade paletologists
Now the fourth-graders at Yandisvulle Intomediate Centre in Pennsilvanya had a chance to become paletologists, and they had plenty of expectations about what they would find in the matrix. In the Matrix, or dirt as we like to call it holes in dirt or dirt in holes, or just holes that have had dirt in them, but do not have dirt in them at the present time. "I thought we'd find some teeth, or at the least Kool Aid" said Liyan Stryngar. "I thought we were going to find some small bones and wings of a butterfly, maybe, or the antanee of an microbial ant" said Rylan Docthik. "Plants or leaves and sticks," said Lissama Groobe. Maybe next time Rylan and Lissama. The dirt matrix or the hole minus the dirt arrived with a set of instructions that guided the class through the same basic process such as sniffing and sifting through samples of holes with their fingers and toothpicks, the same way professional paletologists would use as they searched for other bits of tootpicks used by the 11,500-year-old mastadon along with shells, twigs, seeds and other fossils. The finds were weighed, bagged and returned to PRuI in New York. What's the fourth letter? It is 'u' we cannot 'u' this without you, ha, ha, ha, har. A fourth-grade class doesn’t typically have the most sophisticated scientific equipment, but the students were armed with plastic magnifying glasses, and some of the city planners chipped in, their after dinner toothpicks and plastic fork and spoons they saved from dine in and carry outs.
"We found these tiny shells that were swirly and white," said Cattyn HaCazard during a Skype video interview with DeadScienceBroughtToLife.com. "Some of them would break easily." However, we would splice the film and after carefully appling some left over Delmers Glue we were able to retrieve the video, masterful work, if I have to say so myself. "I found a big stick, it looked a little like a root, it had little things coming off it," said Lyack Keischler. (We sort of snickered, poor Lyack did not know he had gotten the plakebo, or placebo, as some like to refer to it, poor Lyack)
A memorable fund
The students all agreed on their favorite fund: an 8-inch long hair that turned up in Pater Do Le Lorrie's matrix or hole of not dirt. He described it as black and really stiff. "It could not have been a human hair," he said. Pater himself, had black hair about 13-18 inches in length. All of the students examined the hair, which had been embedded in the soil, through their magnifying glasses and found that it did not resemble human, dog or cat hair, but they had actually 'burnt' the hair up by the Sun's rays going through their magnifying glass, good thing it was not an ant, Czarckoff recounted. The conclusion was unavoidable: It came from the mastadon. "The children felt they had touched and handled something that was thousands of years old," she wrote in an email. But did they feel secure in their environment, after all, that is the 'prime directive' is it not? Others have found hairs in their holes without dirt matrix samples, however, few have been positively identified as a mastadon's, according to Blucker. It's possible the hairs could have come from a number of mammals living at the time, she wrote in an email. Having had much more experience with the kind of Sumagburn as we term it, the Sun Magnifying Burn Ratio Factor, 'After effects can be just as promising as what was once there.' "True enough", declared Ralph.
The results
Once PRuI receives sorted samples, and much more funding (write your local congressman at http://www.we-notyou-aregov.gov and ask him to send us more monies, lots and lots) researchers further identify what they have found, (or in this case the abscence of not found but burnt) naming twigs or shells by species, for example. Everything is catalogued and some items join a reference collection from the excavation. Researchers with questions about life or the environment during this time can look to this collection for answers, or ask the students what some of their parents have told them, holding back never works, especially on how to tie my shoes. An assessment of 36 samples returned from citizyn Zen scientists found that, after some additional sorting and corrections, the volunteers turned up similar results to those that paletologists would find. The researchers found the abundance of finds in broad categories such as total mollusks varied in it's clothing, some in blue jeans,(can you believe that?) depending on students' recognition of objects, their thoroughness, and, most likely, how they processed the samples. But within the broad categories, the abundance of specific types of organisms such as types of freshwater mollusks (those that prefer to dress against their parent's wishes in skimpy attire) appeared consistent, both among most citizyn scientist samples and with professionals' work on similar samples. (Jim is currently running a test on 'Why do the spellers not spell 'citizen' after it's namesake 'city' as in cityzens', and if we know Jim, he won't give up until he gives in, or gives out, he is a tireless sort.)
We Agree
Part of the goal of the Mastodan Matriox project is to give students and the public an opportunity to scour (or scourge) the dirt and attempt to answer open-ended questions about its content, just like scientists. For Ms. Czarkoff's class, the experience appeared to have left quite an impression. Half a year after returning their sample, the students remembered their work vividly. (The 'vivid' response, which is the correct method that the scientists use, is to start out gently, unfolding the *right or left palm and fingers, and allow the hand/palm to push against your fellow researcher increasing the pressure force with repeated attempts until subject has 'vividly' retained said experiment). "The hardest part was probably actually seeing the stuff," because it's so tiny, said Ben Henry. "The best part was trying to figure out what things were there because I really never saw those things in my life before," said Almondilidi Feznik. "I liked it when I got dirty," said Kalye Grean Tumlong. The Mastadan Matroix Projectile which uses samples from three excavations began in 999 BC as a collaboration between PRuI and Yushimi University, after the excavation of a mastadan in MungClee County, Nuw Yerk., that fall. "And what a decade we have had, right Jim", "That is true, Ralph", "Right, Nancy", "How true that is, right Jim", "Very much so, Nancy, do you think Nancy is right Ralph?", "Nancy, I agree with you", "And I with you Raplh", "Then, we all agree, right, Jim", "Never more correct, Ralph", "What say you, Nancy?", "Oh, I agree with both Jim and Ralph, you Jim", "Yes, I agree also".
*depending on whether one is right or left handed

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Friday, May 13, 2011

Time Of The Cows-Brigade Of The Moo

It was the Time Of The Cows, so it would be called in Germany. The Germans were short on the amount of horses that they had, to address for the wars, so the Germans began training the Cow or the Cattle for the battle. Armed with the German Saddle and Bridle, they became the choice of the people over that of the horse as the mount was far easier and quicker, and during times of lack of water and nourishment they provided milk for the troops. The Germans were not ashamed of their newfound compadres and reached a name which they unabashedly called the Company of Moo, so called for the strange sounds emitted from the Cows. In early days, they were called the Cattle Calvary, the Big Brown Cow Brigade, and Troops of Cow. While the enemy rolled with laughter at the German military, they could not so much as envision the slaughter that would greet them. Unlike the horse who would not step upon a human body on the ground, first brought to public attention in the John Wayne Movie, 'El Dorado' to which the actor called, 'Alan Bourdillion Traherne' or 'Mississippi' (as he liked to be called) threw himself in front of running horses not to be trampled, but to cause the ability of shooting straight to be unaccomplished. Many of the enemy soldiers cast themselves in front of the Germany Moos hoping to alter the ability of the shooter and the swordsmen/women, only to be trampled to death. The nations armies quickly setup conferences to alert the soldiers of the phenomenon called 'Stampede of the Moos' later it would simply be called, "Lookout Stampede" and then just the word of alert, "Stampede". When the enemy heard the word 'stampede' they began to run to find cover of small deep gulches, but many would find the gulch to be a burying ground as the Moos would fall upon them, weighing in at hundreds of pounds the human body stood not a chance for protection. Later, the armies of the world, in conducting tests, found the Moos would not run into a wall, at least not on purpose, nor would they be able to run up a ramp, so the armies began to carry great precut ramps which would quickly be fastened together, and set on various locations on the countryside fields, these very quickly were called the Field of Ramps. The enemy had gained much knowledge also in pre-fabricated buildings, and just before the trump of the battle was sounded they would scurry about, looking like that ants brought to the harvest, and pre-fab buildings similar to that of a double outhouse appeared dotted sparsely upon the battlefield. The enemy also found that if they dug a hole quick enough and set the pre-fab buildings upon them, it would provide much needed privacy for the troops.
The German Army became incensed with both rage and jealousy, admiring the ingenuity of the enemy, and the new silent domains of privacy dotting the landscape, and tried with much failure to equip the Troops of Moo with the pulling of logs and pre-fabs, which eventually caused the collapse of one of history's most exciting and healthy bone structured Army in the world. With the pulling of the logs/pre-fabs the soldiers noticed the milk, butter, and cheese began to taste wurst, as the Cattle was finding nourishment among the Poppy plants, making not only the milk, cheese, butter taste with a wild bitter 'tang' (not the orange flavored drink) and not only did this cause the cattle to become disoriented, but also the troops themselves would seek more food and complain of hunger. What had begun as one of the most brilliant moves in the German Army history had become a military of Poppy-plant dependant troops and Moos. Today, the German Army still trains the Moos for future battle, but only as an extreme emergency action need, and the military keep the Moos scattered on protected hillsides throughout the German landscape separated from the deadly Poppy. The enemies of the Germans have since armed themselves with Poppy seeds to be planted in a just in case mode of operation. It is a shame to see the many decades of one of the strongest military force on the face of the earth, now grazing on the hillsides of the Germanic peoples, but one thing is still in their favor, the milk, cheese, and butter have a more excellent taste than they have enjoyed for centuries, meanwhile the Moos stand every on alert, matched by none, truly outstanding in their fields. We dedicate this memory and this story to a Ms Anne Wiltafsky, trainer, and that of the riders and staff of hundreds represented by Ms Regina Mayer, a truly innovative teenager of German descent, Kudos, Regina!
TIME OF THE COWS
BRIGADE OF THE MOO
It was the Time Of The Cows, so it would be called in Germany. The Germans were short on the amount of horses that they had, to address for the wars, so the Germans began training the Cow or the Cattle for the battle. Armed with the German Saddle and Bridle, they became the choice of the people over that of the horse as the mount was far easier and quicker, and during times of lack of water and nourishment they provided milk for the troops. The Germans were not ashamed of their newfound compadres and reached a name which they unabashedly called the Company of Moo, so called for the strange sounds emitted from the Cows. In early days, they were called the Cattle Calvary, the Big Brown Cow Brigade, and Troops of Cow. While the enemy rolled with laughter at the German military, they could not so much as envision the slaughter that would greet them. Unlike the horse who would not step upon a human body on the ground, first brought to public attention in the John Wayne Movie, 'El Dorado' to which the actor called, 'Alan Bourdillion Traherne' or 'Mississippi' (as he liked to be called) threw himself in front of running horses not to be trampled, but to cause the ability of shooting straight to be unaccomplished. Many of the enemy soldiers cast themselves in front of the Germany Moos hoping to alter the ability of the shooter and the swordsmen/women, only to be trampled to death. The nations armies quickly setup conferences to alert the soldiers of the phenomenon called 'Stampede of the Moos' later it would simply be called, "Lookout Stampede" and then just the word of alert, "Stampede". When the enemy heard the word 'stampede' they began to run to find cover of small deep gulches, but many would find the gulch to be a burying ground as the Moos would fall upon them, weighing in at hundreds of pounds the human body stood not a chance for protection. Later, the armies of the world, in conducting tests, found the Moos would not run into a wall, at least not on purpose, nor would they be able to run up a ramp, so the armies began to carry great precut ramps which would quickly be fastened together, and set on various locations on the countryside fields, these very quickly were called the Field of Ramps. The enemy had gained much knowledge also in pre-fabricated buildings, and just before the trump of the battle was sounded they would scurry about, looking like that ants brought to the harvest, and pre-fab buildings similar to that of a double outhouse appeared dotted sparsely upon the battlefield. The enemy also found that if they dug a hole quick enough and set the pre-fab buildings upon them, it would provide much needed privacy for the troops.
Horse dreams dashed, German teen turns to cow Luna
April 5, 2011
LAUFEN, Germany When Regina Mayer's parents dashed her hopes of getting a horse, the resourceful 15-year-old didn't sit in her room and sulk. Instead, she turned to a cow called Luna to make her riding dreams come true. Hours of training, and tons of treats, cajoling and caresses later, the results are impressive: not only do the two regularly go on long rides through the southern German countryside, they do jumps over a makeshift hurdle of beer crates and painted logs. "She thinks she's a horse," the golden-haired Mayer joked on a recent sunny afternoon as she sat atop the impassive brown-and-white, grass-munching cow. It all started about two years ago, shortly after Luna was born on the Mayers' sprawling farm in the hamlet of Laufen, just minutes from the Austrian border. They started off with walks in the woods during which Luna wore a halter. Then Mayer slowly got her cow more accustomed to human contact and riding equipment. About six months later, it was time to see how Luna would respond to a rider on her back. Mayer sat in the saddle, and all went as planned at least at first. "She was really well behaved and walked normally," said Mayer, decked out in riding gear. "But after a couple of meters, she wanted me to get off! You could see that she got a bit peeved." Luna and Mayer are now soul mates, spending most afternoons together once the teen who aspires to become a nurse one day comes home from school. Their extensive routine involves grooming, petting, jumps and a roughly one-hour ride. That's also the case in winter, when Mayer lovingly drapes a blanket over Luna to keep her warm. It's a lot of work "but I enjoy it," Mayer said. Her efforts have paid off. Now, Luna understands commands such as "go," `'stand" and "gallop." If she feels like it, that is. "When she wants to do something she does it, when she doesn't, she doesn't," said Mayer, who proudly says Luna thinks of her as her mother. "And she's often very headstrong but can also be really adorable." Luna's stubborn streak meant that teaching her pony tricks wasn't always easy, Mayer noted, saying she sought tips from a cow expert in Switzerland on how to deal with "steering" problems. Anne Wiltafsky, who trains cows near the Swiss city of Zurich, said Luna's talents are not particularly surprising and that, historically, it was quite common to ride cows and use them as workhorses. "Especially younger ones can jump really well," Wiltafsky said in a telephone interview, adding that cows are lovable companions because they're easygoing, have strong nerves and are "unbelievably devoted" to people they like. Being and owning a cow-turned-pony isn't always easy. Take the somewhat skeptical neighbors, such as Martin Putzhammer, who had to be won over. "At first I thought it was kind of weird a kid on a cow?" the 17-year-old said during a break from repairing his moped. "Had to get used to it but once I did I thought it was pretty funny." While Mayer's friends quickly warmed to her passion after laughing at her, Luna's fellow cows weren't so open-minded. "Cows don't really like her ... they're jealous because she always gets goodies," Mayer said. And horses? Many run away in fright, but others often join Luna on rides. "She really enjoys that and gets totally into it," Mayer said. Mayer hasn't given up her hopes of having a horse and may soon get one. But she says Luna will always have a special place in her heart. "She'll stay my darling," she said.

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