All the Creatures

photo courtesy of Venetian Masks

Would it come as a surprise to you to learn that Mardi Gras is celebrated all over the world? It surprised me, as I thought it was strictly a new world event that was centered in New Orleans and south America. Mardi Gras is the period of celebration that leads up to Ash Wednesday, a Christian day that marks the beginning of Lent (the period where Christ went through 40 days of fasting). In the period of Mardi Gras varies from country to country and even here in the USA each city has a different number of days or weeks that parties, masked balls and celebrations take place.

Animals also have their part in the celebrations. They are not just symbolized in the Mardi Gras masks, also called Venetian Masks, as shown in the photo above. Animals are the benefactors of several parades in New Orleans, where money is collected and donated to local shelters. Dogs are commonly dressed up and accompany their owners in the parades. There is even a celebration of dead and lost pets.

So you see, Mardi Gras is not just for humans.

All the Creatures

Apparently a web store called ThinkGeek ran an April’s Fool joke ad poking fun at spam. Calling the product, canned Unicorn meat, “the NEW white meat.” Well it got the attention of the pork marketing people and they wrote a 12 page cease and desist letter. Didn’t they know that Unicorns don’t exist? I know that pigs are intelligent but it seems that the people marketing them are not. They didn’t like the idea of the slogan that ThinkGeek used. It sounded too much like, “pork, the other white meat.” You can read more about it at Chow.com at this link.

My guess is that the pork people don’t get out much otherwise they would have written a 12 letter to the rattle snake industry in Texas, who mention, poke fun and say that, rattle snake is “the other white meat.” I am assuming it (rattle snake) tastes just like chicken.

All the Creatures

Is it too early to talk about kids halloween costumes? I am not talking about costumes for human children but our friends, the goats. It is summer now and county fairs are in full swing along with 4-H shows and just plain fun get togethers. We always hear about doggy dress-up and if you go to some of the larger horse shows you can witness costume classes where the horse and rider dress up in non-traditional horse outfits. I thought I would just gather a few photos of goats that have been dressed up. I hope you enjoy them -

Cute photos aren’t they? As a side note, my neighbor has a few goats and one of the females gave birth to triplets a few weeks back. They are Boar goats, the all white with a brown head colored ones. Boars are meat goats. They grow pretty big and I have not asked him if he plans on eating them or not. Most of the time he just sells them. I use to have 2 Nubian/Boar cross female goats almost 10 years ago. I got them as 5 month olds. We had them for about 5 years and then sold them to a breeder who loved that cross.

Goats are fun and do make great pets. They also make good companions for horses.

All the Creatures