Cow Puja!

This weekend  we are celebrating our four beautiful bovines with a Cow Puja, an event honoring cows based on a traditional Indian celebration that our interns, Bethany and Brendan, witnessed during their travels in India and thought would be fun to perform here.

During a cow puja, the cows are painted and draped with flower garlands and often have balloons tied to their horns. Their stalls are decorated. A blessing is performed and  incense swirled around the cows. One friend informed me that the cows are led around and people give them money offerings, but we won't be doing that part in our Minnesota-style puja.

Last week, I tied LaFonda  to her milking station, gave her some grain and  proceeded to paint her with nontoxic tempera paints to test whether the paints would work. They will, but painting a cow is much easier said than done. I was able to paint LaFonda's horns blue easily, but whenever I would try to paint her face she would turn toward me wondering what I was doing, trying to see the brush and foiling my design. Nevertheless, afterward Bethany assured me she looked very much like the decorated cows in India. We may be a bit optimistic about painting all the cows--LaFonda is bound to be the easiest of the herd, and she was a bit of a challenge. At least I was able to get a photo for a poster.

Our Cow Puja will be from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. this Sunday and everyone is welcome to join us. It will be a fun, whimsical event.The Nodding Wild Onions will be playing music, debuting some original cow songs. There will be an abundance of cow art and photos in the  farm shop, including Enid Weichselbaum's  MN State Fair championship quilt featuring  our very own LaFonda.  Guests will be able to treat the cows to the cows' favorite garden goodies and cow cookies, and then feast themselves on "cow pies."

This the last weekend our fabulous interns, Bethany and Brendan, will be here - they are off to new adventures next week.  We have been so blessed to have two such enthusiastic, hardworking and delightful interns all summer and we are really going to miss them. So, Sunday will actually be an Intern Puja as much as a Cow Puja.  However, the interns will not be painted!