A Series of Strange Events

Yesterday 4 of us decided to travel to Urbank for the day.  We started out at the fall festival of the church.  We enjoyed the festival and won a cake at the cake walk.  the cake walk isn't really a gamble the way we play.  We pay $5.00 for all 10 tickets and hold all 10 numbers so one of us has to win.  We looked over all the sweet goodies and decided on an unfrosted angel food cake.  We headed to the farm and took a walk around the property.  Dozens of large leopard frogs jumped around our feet.  We heard sandhill cranes calling from the pasture and turkey vultures flew overhead.  One of the cows was a rich brown color but her face had white spots and streaks that reminded me of a map. Her son was also a rich brown color and he was nursing very roughly.  He would pause in his nursing to look at us.  Milk covered his face from above his eyes to below his chin.  Milk on his face.  A big disgrace! Before returning to nursing he would bump his mother's udder really hard.  He nudged her so hard in the udder she had to move her feet to stay upright.  One theory is that the udder nudging leads to a richer, creamier supply of milk.  If true, I'm glad it's a cow thing and not a human thing because I would not put up with such rough treatment.  We decided to climb Inspiration Peak.  We took the dirt road there.  Along the way we saw a gray cat on the road.  As we got closer the cat dashed out in front of my car.  I slowed down.  As much as I dislike feral cats I won't run one down on purpose.  The cat panicked and decided to run in front of the car for 20 yards.  Not the smartest move but maybe this wasn't the smartest cat.  Then the cat changed his mind and leapt into the ditch.  When I saw leapt, I mean flew.  The cat jumped pretty high and flew with front legs extended back; it's stomach just clearing the tall grass in the ditch.  That leap was about 10 feet long and very impressive.  As we drove up and down the hills formed by the drumlins around Inspiration Peak, our vision is impaired by the steep hills.  Going up we could see the road and the sky but no farther.  We went up one hill and could see an animal on the road two hills away.  Coming up the second hill I slowed down because I was pretty sure some animal was on the road at the crest of the hill.  I'm glad I did slow down because 3 full size Holsteins would have definitely put a dent in my Honda.  One cow stood on the road looking at us.  The other two were half on the road and half in the ditch eating ears of corn.  Somebody should call little boy blue.  We hadn't passed any pastures for quite few hills so we didn't know where these cows came from.  Oddly enough these cows had leather collars around their necks.  Are they frequent runaways or are they free range cows?  We kept going but didn't see any pastures for the next half mile.  And the cows in that pasture weren't wearing any collars.  We continued to the peak and climbed it  The view was beautiful as always.  On the way home we stopped in Parkers Prairie to drop off the cake with an uncle and in Alexandria for dinner.  Dessert was at the Tip Top in Osakis where we ordered ice cream from outside through a sliding window.  As we drove out of the parking lot our view of oncoming traffic was blocked by a large pick up truck that had the head of an elk (including 5 foot long antlers) resting on top of the head on a mountain sheep.  The elk was looking up at the sky and the antler angled back toward the tailgate.  We burst into laughter at the odd cargo. The rest of the drive was uneventful until we headed into the storm as we passed St. Cloud.  Up in the sky we saw T & A.  I'm not kidding.  Some of the clouds were mammary clouds and to the west of those we saw clouds that looked like the south end of a donkey heading north.  Strange sights to see to end this last day of summer. In my mind summer ends on September first.  I think we spent the last day of the season very well.