Today’s cow laid an egg!

We’re avid readers at our house and visit our local library once or twice a week to refresh our current stock of books (for children and grown-ups alike). Somehow we always manage to borrow more books than we return, so once in a while (usually when we reach 100 borrowed books), I go through the drawers we keep all the books in and decide what to bring back to the library. I try to do this filing while the kids are sleeping, or else they don’t let me return anything.

This morning I went through our stock pile by pile and I found these two books:

Any Cuthill's The cow that laid an egg and The cow that was the best moo-ther

We’ve read these two books over and over and the kids love them, for a good reason. They’re hilarious!

In “The cow that laid an egg”, Marjorie the cow would like to do something extraordinary in her lifetime so the chickens decide to help her out and place an egg next to her while she’s asleep. When she wakes up, she believes she’s laid an egg, and so does the farmer, who calls a bunch of reporters to document the event. The other cows smell something fishy and decide to wait until the egg hatches to prove their point. But when the baby chick comes out of its shell, the first thing coming out of his mouth happens to be “Moooooo!”, proving to Marjorie he is her baby. Of course!

In “The cow that was the best moo-ther”, Marjorie and the other cows enter the farmer’s wife contest for the cutest baby cow. Don’t ask me how, but Marjorie ends up winning a special trophy for “best moo-ther” by the bull!

If you’re a parent of little ones, I definitely recommend these two books for a good laugh. As for us, we’ll have to find another book with cows to read tonight, because these two are now back at the library!

Dress in style, wear a cow belt!

The kids opted for a visit to our local mall this morning. Even though the outside temperatures have come down since last week’s heatwave, it was nice to spend the morning in the air conditioning. The boys played at the mall playground a little. I say a little because the place quickly turned into chaos, with moms letting their kids loose without any supervision. Yes, moms, you know this always works so well… So we left and headed for the carousel. If you remember well, there is no cow on that mall carousel (I’m still looking for my carousel cow, someone please find one!) but we still have a great time.

As we strolled around the mall afterwards, we spotted our first cow in a small booth in the middle of the main aisle. This one is another longhorn cow skull (ah, the ever so popular longhorn cow skull!) used as a glittery cow buckle for a belt. How stylish indeed (at least somebody must think it is)! I think I’ll skip, thanks.

Glittery longhorn cow skull belt buckle

We then had lunch at Pat & Oscar’s, the pizza and breadstick restaurant. Yes, what goes better with pizza than breadsticks? Don’t laugh, those garlic breadsticks are so delicious and way, way better than the pasty dry breadsticks from Olive Garden… Pat & Oscar’s best kept secret is that kids eat free on Tuesday. Since I was by myself with the kids, I thought I’d be able to get only one kid meal free. Well, it doesn’t work that way! The girl at the register explained that as long as I bought at least $5 of adult food per kid (so a $10 minimum for two kids), I would get two kids’ meals for free on top of that. What a deal! We came back with so much food, we had some for dinner and we’ll have to freeze the rest. The kids’ meals came with beverages and I opted for milk (a much healthier option than soda or juice) and before I packed it up for later use, I took a photo of the containers. Yes, more cows!

Horizon's Organic milk cartons with cows

Who said you won’t find cows at the mall?

Today’s cow is on a trophy!

I want to start today’s post by thanking Sarah at Sarsm’s Blog for sending me the latest update on Yvonne the runaway cow. Yvonne has now been granted asylum in the Bavarian forest, at least until the Fall season, when food may become more sparse and she may become easier to catch. For anyone who says cows are fully domesticated animals, Yvonne is living proof some of them may have some wild left in them.

This afternoon we stopped by the library to pick up some new books and this is what the librarian had left for me to take a picture of on a shelf in the children’s book department. Thank you!

Wolf book by Becky Bloom

But for my very first cow sighting of the day, I’d like to thank Tilly Bud at The Laughing Housewife. It seems she’s decided to reward one of her post commenters with an award on a weekly basis. And what did she pick as a trophy? A cow, of course! She appropriately named her award COWAbunger^TM (Comment of the Week Award). By the way, that’s how you do a superscript TM, Tilly!

Cow trophy

It’s another shopping bag with a cow!

My favorite produce store, Henry’s Marketplace, recently merged with a very similar store called Sprouts. I say very similar because the only thing separating the two stores is their names. You see, about 20 years ago, Sprouts was the one produce store around here. I’m not sure what happened but some members of management decide to leave and create their own produce store, calling it Henry’s Marketplace. The store logos are very similar, everything inside looks the same, except for the branding. If all the branding signs were removed and someone made you step into one of the stores, I bet you wouldn’t be able to tell if you’re in a Henry’s or a Sprouts store.

Well, it seems the divorce phase is over and Henry’s and Sprouts are getting remarried. The couple will be renamed Sprouts, so my local Henry’s is going through some rebranding of its own, little by little, starting with the grocery bags. There’s not much to say about the plastic bags, which display the Sprouts logo, but today I got my groceries put in paper bags, and this is what they look like:

Sprouts shopping paper bag with cows

 These are some pretty big cows, wouldn’t you say? Even though Henry’s is changing its name, it’s still one of my favorite stores, and now for another reason!

News update on Yvonne the runaway cow

Today’s cow is a repeat, in a couple of ways. One of my cow sightings appeared in the children’s book Poppleton by Cynthia Rylant.

Poppleton by Cynthia Rylant

We borrowed this book (and others in the Poppleton series) a few months ago from the library. The kids talked about Poppleton last week so I borrowed the book again and today we got to read it and notice the cows from the cow parade. How fun would it really be to watch?

Cow parade in Poppleton by Cynthia Rylant

I also wanted to give you an update on Yvonne the runaway cow, which I first mentioned a few weeks ago. Yvonne has now been on the loose for three months and is still enjoying unsupervised strolls in the Bavarian forest. Sending a cow whisperer did the authorities no good - does it make the animal whispering business look questionable? The bull didn’t get the job done either – apparently he is resistible, but don’t tell him or you may hurt his ego. As with everything else, patience seems to be the key. Or maybe offering Yvonne’s favorite treat as a bait. Just an idea, people…

Read the latest update on Yvonne the runaway cow here.