"Kiss a lovely moose"
We're all familiar and adore "Engrish", but today, it's time for the Russian version of it. Behold the "Kostrama Moose farm" in central Russia. Not only are the photos TDF, but the phrases and translations are extremely entertaining.
There is an overwhelming admiration for the meese. The farmers claim "Moose cows love us more than their own children."
"They run to us whenever we call."
and "and some - big bulls, kind like kitten. "
According to the site, "Swedish army had moose troops... Moose turned out to be wiser then their knights, they left battlefield to hide in the nearest forest if danger occured."
The Kostrama Moose farm website has delightful (snort) content categories too: "Why Moose?" "Buy a Tame Moose", "Heal a Peptic Ulcer" (Apparently a moose-related specialty) "Drink a Moose Milk" and my favorite: "Kiss a lovely Moose".
NOT TO MENTION the knobbular delights that are the moose baby photos.
sooooo.... wobbly.... must.... try....
The author of the site has a future in coffee table book, for sure.
Daisy H. does it again. Brilliant, brilliant find, Girl!
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MADNESS!!!!
Okay, 1.) I had no idea that moose (mooses, meese?) were that large. What do I know, I'm from Kansas?
2.) How is it possible for the baby mooseling's legs to be THAT long?
3.) Where does one keep a pet moose?
4.) Now the Russians are getting in on the Qte?
the massive tongues....so cute! It's like a MONSTER slurp.
Redzilla, you're a jayhawk? As am I :)
And yes, moose are a wee big bigger than buffalo (let's relate it to midwestern animals you might have seen)
OMG!
I will say that the bebe Meeses are adorable...but...
the adult moose...HUGE! Did you see how big that thing was? Yeep! It might eat me!
A Møøse once bit my sister ...
They are so tute (too cute) I want to hug them all. But then again moose can be violent when provoked and that mama looked very big.
Soooo much legs.
I bet their muzzles are so soft and velvety. I love meesies to pieces!
From the site (about feeding the moose "sweets"):
"For you - is it dangerous? Perhaps. Do not break rules. Do not run, do not cry, do not try to pick up dropped sweets... and be patient with a soft warm tender moose. Just as if it is a horse."
Adorable.
i wants it!!!!!!! Where can i get my very own tamed moose?
moosalicious
Oh my, I think this is my favorite CO photoset EVAR!
The babies are very cute, as are all babies, but I don't know if I would want to "Kiss A Lovely Moose!". I have to check out this website!
Wow....I didn't even know they had moose in Russia.
I had no idea adult moose were so HUGE!
The posted moose "warnings" I've seen along New England's highways don't expound, where the size of an adult is concerned.
"Brake for Moose"...the absurdity is, when/if one sees them, who wouldn't?
OMG Mo0S1es!!1!!
And daisyj, you know it's only your sister's own fault. If she hadn't been carving her name in the moose with an interspace toothbrush the whole incident could have been avoided.
"brake for moose" does seem a bit unnecessary now that I've seen an adult. The sign might as well say, "Brake for moose or DIIIIIIIIE!"
Oh, and Jenn, I would like to say that I am not a Jayhawk :o) My people have always thought of ourselves as Free Staters.
Finally! I've been telling people for years that moose are total cutie pies; I mean come on, who couldn't love those huge faces?
OMG, that last pic! *heart palpitates*
i love the one with the doggie and the moose. who who baby meeses were so cute?!!!
hahah nice legs! soo cute
I only have one thing to say...
"Moose troops"!
Moose troops, people! Surely this is the answer to the ongoing debacle in Eye-Rack!
"I had no idea adult moose were so HUGE!"
Yes, indeedy--800-1000 lbs going through your windshield could be fatal. On NE's hilly, twisty, dark roads you often don't see them till they're in your headlights. So the caution is really to slow down and watch out. That said...
Looks like a new Disney movie in the making, called "Bamboose"!
CARLEEESA!! :-D [waves and blows kisses]
Best part is, under "Kiss a Lovely Moose" on the siteit doesn't actually say anything about kissing the moose. I'm always amazed that those spindly little legs can hold up that kind of bulk.
Teh awwsum. Glad I'm fostering CATS, though, and not über-hoofers like these.
daisyj and mleiv have been sacked.
I shall kees a lovely moose...if it is wee! Those wittle faces!
Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti...
Indeed, I shall kees a lovely moose. Especially if it exhibits such knobular and gangly and redonkulously wonky anatomy as these.
Oh what a great creature the moose is
It goes pretty much wherever it chooses.
If you're in the woods and happen to see
The hugest, widespaced footprints and you're screaming, "Yeti!!!" (like me)
It's probably a moose in its' size 92W shoeses.
That took me about a minute to compose so either it's really bad or I moosed have been inspired. I live in moose country. This is a wuh-hunderful, breathtaking post! Thanks, Meg!
And look! In the second picture, the little moose in the background is cleverly carrying a bucket on his shoulders!
:O
HAHAHHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHA! Meese!
>Dead from cute<
I just can't think the mooses are cute, knobby knees and all. I am afraid of them. They charge cars. A moose killed one of my cousins. They're really scary animals despite their knobolishish knees... like polar bears.
"Dispensation of oatmeal is not an easy work during a ringing frost" is my new sig line.
My fave photo on the site is the one titled Oatmeal is the best food in the world.
http://moosefarm.newmail.ru/sw84-37.jpg
"The huge molars of Horst Nordfink."
OK, I went to the Moose Farm site and to the English language version. It cannot be real. Meg, did you do the translation from the Russian? Or did you create the whole thing? If so, it's your greatest post. "big bulls, kind like kitten?" 'Fess up, Meg.
It's so swell to see lesser-fussed-over mammals getting face time on C.O.: ratties, batties, possumses and now meese! As a Mainer, I find this one especially heartwarming, and it takes me back to moose-watching on my honeymoon. I just goes to show that what my dad says is true...mammals sure are cute!
Karen - "Russian try-outs for the Radio City Rockettes were well attended..."
I'm convinced their babies have flexible wires as opposed to actual bones. Look at how they curl up!
The moose farm administrator is a person with a sense of humour. This is such a great picture:
http://moosefarm.newmail.ru/loc-en01.htm
And I must say he is as brave as all get out, I would never get this close to such a huge, huge, huge animal. It looks as big as an elephant.
I'm convinced their babies have flexible wires as opposed to actual bones. Look at how they curl up!
Baby moose noses are, indeed, soft--velvety, quivery, soft.
When I went to Alaska, the guide at Denali said he's more afraid of stumbling across a mother moose with her calf than a grizzly mother and cub. They are ginormous!!
P.S. Love the Python references people!
i wants to kiss a lovely moose! or two!
we luv Alexandr Minaev. What a cool guy!
Impeccably timed Monty Python reference, daisyj! Kudos to you!
I have to add to the ringing chorus here: OMIGOD THAT'S A HUGE HEEEEEED! Really, is there something wrong with the perspective here--is the moose's head foreshortened or something? I mean, I know they're big bloody animals, but . . . WHOA. THAT'S ONE BEEEG HEEEED!
That third picture has inspired me to create a new yoga pose. (Sideways sleeping moose? Or perhaps, sideways slepping moose.)
It looks like there's a bit of strange perspective going in the picture with the adult moose and the woman, which makes the moose look even larger.
All the same, they are big creatures. Being Alaskan, I've had the privilege of seeing more than one up close (startled one on my bike once). Although they're normally pretty peaceable and only threats to one's father's prized apple trees *cough*, you can never forget that they're wild creatures. More than one Alaskan has died thanks to stupidity around moose. They will protect themselves and their young, and those hooves of theirs combined with their size and weight can reduce a human to the consistency of cherry pie filling. So, yes, caution is needed.
There is, however, no denying that knobbly-kneed little mooses are the height of adorableness.
I want a North American House Moose - teho, are you listening? Make it so!
"Be patient with a soft warm tender moose." OMG bestest line evar.
Those mooses are awesome. SO cute!
I had a moose in my back yard just this morning! Sadly we don't get to see the baby's often, we see the teenagers. They are cute too! I like in AK, and moose are a part of life here!
I'm Canadian eh and we have moose a plenty up here.
I used to live on a small island in Northern Ontario and one day as my mom was driving my brother and I to school we had a close encounter.
A large adult femoose stuck her whole head into the passenger side window and ran alongside the car, snorting away for about two kilometres.
It was quite the site to behold. I awoke from a nap to find my mother frantically whispering to my brother not to touch it and him giggling nervously. I just stared in wide-eyed wonder.
That's my lil story.
Meatcup away
I must kees the velvety muzzles! And maybe kronche those baby soft ears...if I was tall enough anyway.
You know what I love about the Moose Farm?? The fact that they are free to come and go as they please..and they chose to stay. There are apparently fences, but not fences that can keep the moose in.
The last picture is uber cute and amoosing!
I am totally pwned by the Qte..
I just love the sleepy mooselet! Its looks so cute all curled up there in the grass! Want to snorgle.....!
Karen - LMAO!!! Priceless!
Yup, da babies are sweet as pie...I LURVE the kissie-face pic 4. But methinks I would adore them from a distance.
Can we get a count on those who'd like to take a BUS to the Russian Moose Farm?? Let's start up a list of names. Whadaya say people?? I want to kees many meese!!!
A-hem. I think they should use the word "elk", not moose. A moose is the North-American version of this great animal and an elk is the European one (so I think Russians also have elks).
Elks or moose really are one of the most magnificent animals, huge but still somehow graceful. I once saw a mother elk and two youngsters running across a field in a row. It was so effortless and beautiful.
An elk is not a nice sight in the middle of a road when you are driving in the night, though... :(
Hey that's me! I mean, Daisy H. is me! I found those meese photos because I was google image searching for baby meese since I'm homesick!
I'm rescheduling my next vacation to be in Russia, BTW. I wanna hug beh beh meese.
And yes, meese are huge!
Here is the girl who lives near our cabin outside Fairbanks:
http://www.danceswithrats.com/images/moose1.jpg
http://www.danceswithrats.com/images/moose2.jpg
Yes, she's taller than my car. And that is an ordinary-sized picnic table, if you can imagine! You could sit there, and her belly would clear your head. And the doorway to the shed is also of ordinary height, and notice that she is BELOW the ramp!
Oh here's the last piccy I was referring to:
http://www.danceswithrats.com/images/moose3.jpg
And yes, there are few animals more dangerous than mama meese whose beh beh meese are threatened. Or bull meese during the rut. Mama meese have trampled GRIZZLIES to death in defense of their weemeese.
I am hearing all the text in the Boris Badanov voice.
I seriously just died.
I want to go to the moose farm!
Seriously. Let's get a group rate, charter planes, buses, jeeps, whatever and go as a CO Safari to da Moose Farm!!!
Now this is cute overload, and inspiring too. Nothing virtual about this real story of great humans helping beautiful appealing animals.
It's too much! You have killed me! I am now dead!
Wow, Meatcup, that is a bizarre and slightly frightening story.
I lived in Ontario for a good while, but thankfully the closest-up I ever saw a moose was by the side of a road or at the zoo.
Amazing leggies, and the last pic with tongue action makes me want to smoosh one moose baby and never let go. As a kid I saw a moose from short distance, and the most amazing thing was probably the fuzz covered antlers. They looked like velvet.
Sign me up for the bus trip. Find out what month bebe mooses are the most kissable, and let's go.
daisyj, back in 1989 or 1990, when I was still living in Los Angeles, I saw "MOOSE" on someone's vanity plate. The frame around the license plate read "I bit your sister."
And around the same time, someone had "adopted" a fruit bat at the L.A. Zoo and named it "Eric."
Hi Jaypo! (waves and blows kisses back!) I've missed everyone so had to drop in.
Meg sends my daily CO fix, but it's nice to see the crowd. Hugz all around :o)
Good God.
This is the first tiem I have seen a moose near to a human.
They are HUUUUUGE!!!
Redilla: I am not sure where you would keep a pet moose but if you decide to get one I hear they really like going to the moose-seum.
Also....did anyone else read the website in a Natasha's-from-Rocky-&- Bullwinkle voice?
My Grandmother lives in AK. when she was younger, she was washing her dishes one fine Spring day when the (open) kitchen window went from sunny and bright to pitch-black. She looked up...right into the oversize nostrils of the curious moose that had decided he wanted to take a sniff of her head!
As she said, "I don't know who was more frightened afterward--me, or the poor moose!"
It's just so hard to believe that something that HUGE is related to the dainty white-tailed deer that grace my front yard most mornings...
--TwoDragons
I once was paddling, in a canoe, across a shallow part of my gramps' lake in Maine..... and out of the water walks a moose right onto the shore and into the woods. Slowly. Sheesh! Talk about HUGE. They really are big especially if you are sitting in a small boat. I felt like I came up to his nobby knee!
Renee said: Can we get a count on those who'd like to take a BUS to the Russian Moose Farm??
--Oh yes, ROAD TRIP! We can sing all the classic campfire songs: Oh When the Meese..Come Marching In, and There Was a Farmer Had a Moose, and Bingo was his Name-O, and One Hundred Bottoms of Meese at the Trough, and - well, Aubrey, where are you when I need inspiration?
Whattayamean, I got the words wrong? Try singing them, they work just fine. And now I have earworms.
Moose rule!
I wuz a little boy, fishing with my bucket the minnows in a creek in Waterton Lake National Park, when a moose family ran by, though the creek, right in front of me. Not scared, and they paid no attention to me, but they were big. Even the baby.
Oh, man! That site is so great!
"Some other photographs (except of moose)" Pythonesque, indeed.
Count me in on the road trip. These meese are extremely huggable.
Now, Billy Joe McGuffrey
was a really clumsy kid.
On the first day of first grade
I'll tell you what he did.
He tripped over a pencil box,
flew up in the air,
landed on a kangaroo
who pulled out all his hair!
He needed first aid in the first grade,
first aid in the first grade,
first aid in the first grade.
You could buy a zoo with all the doctor bills he paid.
Now, Billy Joe McGuffrey
was a really clumsy kid.
On the second day of second grade
I'll tell you what he did.
He slipped on a banana peel,
flew up in the sky,
landed on a chimpanzee
who poked him in the eye!
He needed first aid in the second grade,
first aid in the second grade,
first aid in the second grade.
You could buy a zoo with all the doctor bills he paid.
Now, Billy Joe McGuffrey
was a really clumsy kid.
On the third day of third grade
I'll tell you what he did.
He fell out of a fishing boat,
splashed into the sea,
landed on a moray eel
who bit him on the knee!
He needed first aid in the third grade,
first aid in the third grade,
first aid in the third grade.
You could buy a zoo with all the doctor bills he paid.
And so on...
What grand pix! i'm going to spend the evening at that website. I LOVE meese, and they have a very special place in the Native American heart. The creator made two animals which by themselves provide food, clothing, shelter, sewing tools and thread, a cookpot (stomach) and toys (the stones)....that would be Grandfather Buffalo and Grandfather Moose. Just one of either animal can provide for a family pretty well (and they do both have darlingk bebehs)
EV'rybody SING along with AUNtie MAME!
AUNTIEMAME!!!! *countering earworm with a hearty round of "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" song...*
--TwoDragons
There is no question that meese and elks wouldn't be cute.
The young, lanky meese are adorable and older ones very majestic. Still I have a healthy amount of respect for them.
Too bad they take them from mommy when they are just born (see "Spring")--not so cute for mommy and baby moose. ;(
Fable...it's from a television show called "VeggieTales". A very funny--and fun--show!
--TwoDragons
On the hugeness: if you hit one with your car, it *will* total your car.
Nicely done, Fable. Consider yourself banned. Again.
Those moose knees are out of control.
First off, OMG THESE ARE SO ADORABLE!!!!!!!!!
Second - A Møøse once bit my sister ...
Posted by: daisyj | Jan 08, 2007 at 09:42 AM
Can't....stop....laughing.... *runs to watch Python*
Third (and last, I promise) I live in DOWNTOWN TORONTO and STILL have my American friends asking me about moose - they really do seem to think they're just wandering the streets (of DOWNTOWN TORONTO, population approx 3 mil)
Too funny LOL
what gives? I went to the moose farm site and there are barely any pictures on the picture pages. Just captions without pics. Sad :(
D00ds, me Schmoops gave me the extended extra-special DVD set of Holy Grail for Christmas. It is a silly place. Y'all c'mon over & I'll put it on the projector. And we'll make puddins! (Coconut, natch.)
I can't stand it! Too much freakin' cuteness!!
So many pictures and yet I still want more!
Thank you for these. ;D
Hey Jenner, I live in downtown Toronto too! The only time I've seen moose is in Algonquin Park. (Non-Ontarians, that's a huge provincial park a few hours' drive north of Toronto.)
Too bad these pics weren't posted a couple of weeks ago...then Meg and Theo could have sung, "We wish you a merry Kiss-Moose and a happy new year"!
(I'm not normally a punner, but I guess it's contagious here...)
How are the baby mooseses' legs so bendy?!?
The babies are adorable, all knobby-kneed and angular, but mama is enorMOOSE!
(And does anybody besides me think of the R-rated song, "Oh, it's moose, moose, I want a moose..."?)
OMG so HUGE!!! And I know that most ungulate bebehs are leggy, but these lil' guys are too moishe!
LOVE the last pic!
Actually Janni, the Russians likely WOULD refer to these as moose. North America and Eastern Asia have something entirely different that we call an elk. (They look more like deer.) They've been transplanted to a few other places too, like New Zealand. In North America, they're also called "Wapiti". They're the second largest deer species, after the moose.
And these moose are adorable. I've always loved moose, they're just so silly looking.
It's Kostr*O*ma.
Redzilla: You kidding me? They had me at domesticated foxes.
I am having a cr*p day at work. Thank God for baby meece and CO!
spasibo to anonymoose who pointed out that it is KostrOma :-)
lovely post, Meg.
Nope, the translations look legit - done by someone who is not fluent in English, thus the funny sentences...
Re: Boris and Natasha
All evening I had to restrain the urge to e-mail the moose farm guy and ask him if they also have skverls at moose farm...wonder how often he gets that?
I sure do wish they had meeses in London, I would love to see me one of them
jenner and Christy -- there still ARE a few meese on the downtown Toronto streets, left over from Mayor Mel's summer campaign a few years ago. Some of them were pretty kewl, except they were anatomically incorrect (antlers that got stolen and no sexual apparatus to speak of -- guess those would have been stolen too).
Toronto Cuteologists should get together; right, Laurie C?
Check them out: http://www.toronto.ca/moose/moose_moosellaneous.htm
Oh. My. God.
The bendy legs!!
fourth pic down, the name on the mama's collar says Lala. it's a diminutive of Larissa, usually used for little girls. how cute is that?!
Kristine, I did a search in the net and Wikipedia backs me up. :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elk
I guess the word elk is being used somewhat confusingly around the world, but here in the Europe we call these animals elks (when speaking english). "Moose" is used only in the North America.
I had been told so by a German friend and for a moment I was afraid of having been wrong all these years :)
O. M. G. i'm dyin' over here! positively the best c.o. post EVAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lookit the knobs! lookit the folded legs and head! what, is he a contortionist or just the cutest thing EVAH!????!?!?!?!?
I'm a zookeeper, so I've had the pleasure of "kissing a lovely moose". Her name is Bonnie :D
We missed this one?
http://moosefarm.newmail.ru/linda008.jpg
"If a young mother won't lick her calf - the local Lassie does."
RoadTrip to RUssian Moose Farm!!! Sign me up!
Funny thing, Jenner: growing up in Portland, Maine (a fraction of the size of Toronto, but a full-blown, suburb-surrounded city nonetheless) we actually DID (still do? i don't live there anymore)get moose in the city! Once every couple of years, a moose would get confused or lost or something and wander into downtown Portland. The nature authorities would tranquilize it and take it back to the boonies.
Unrelatedly, once I was in a wildlife park where they had moose. It was a really hot day and there was a huge she-moose lounging against the fence of her big enclosure with her flies all over her big rubbery moose-face. A little girl, about 4 and rather glamorous for her age, ran up to the pen exclaiming, "Oh mama, she's BEAUTIFUL!"
And lastly, my mom says they kind of look like mosquitos from a distance; those long legs seem to almost hang from their bodies.
Yay meese!
I am from northern Quebec, loads of moose up there, you see them all the time in the provincial park separating where I lived from the rest of the world. We would often hear about the moose getting hit by cars... what actually happens is that the car takes out the mooses legs, causing the moose to fall onto the car, hence the considerable wreckage. Beware of the meese. Hopefully these are safe from drivers, and vice versa.
Words fail me.
CUTEST MOOSIES EVER! New rule of cuteness: When your tongue is long enough to pick your nose!!! Who's with me!?
Like Em and Anne R, I live near a stretch of highway that unfortunately has claimed way more human and meeses lives than I can count. All we have to protect ourselves and the moose is a stupid lit up road sign that says "Slow down, moose in area". I'm pretty sure that meeses can't read so not sure what good that does other than making us hit them slower.
Good gravy. Those babies look almost like spiders with those long, spindly stems.
I'm on the bus... but since nobody else has asked... what is the end purpose of the moose farm?? is it a refuge, or....?!?? 8P
Ali--
...I've had the pleasure of "kissing a lovely moose." Her name is Bonnie.
You're not supposed to kiss and tell!
Moosicles! I love moosicles...they are indeed huge, and in an encounter between your care on one of them, they are more likely to walk away from the accident than you are. And jenna, you may not have them wandering around downtown TO, but when the river freezes, we have had the odd one show up in downtown Ottawa!
um, that would be "your car"
And we got meese a-plenty in downtown Fairbanks when they come down to lower elevations for the Winter. Well, okay maybe "downtown" is a stretch, but definitely on campus. And definitely in neighborhoods.
I spent a few minutes browsing the moose site. It's touchingly obvious that these peoples loves their meeses. Reading made me happy like kissing moose nose.
Toungage is now my new desktop background :-)
Janni-
Not trying to be arguementative or anything, but if you look
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elk_%28Cervus_canadensis%29
there (not entirely sure if I made it a link properly, I'm afraid.) what North Americans call an elk can also be found in Russia. (Perhaps adding more to the similar animals portion of plate tectonics, or maybe the land bridge theory. I know I digress, but hey, I find this stuff interesting.) In Russia, they would indeed have to have "moose" and "elk" to distinguish between the two. (For they are very diffrent animals.) But yeah, Europeans probably just call our moose "elk", because they don't have the "Siberian and American Elk". (Cervus canadensis.) :)
You have a good point there!
If russians do have both species, they can't possibly call them both elk. True.
Maybe they even have two completely different names for both of these animals. I just assumed what I assumed since I live about 200 km from the Russian border...
I need to find me a russian and ask what they do call these creatures.
But Russians themselves can't probably be bothered less, since they know perfectly well how to call their wildlife in their own language. :)
Mmmm, every time I look at these photos I smell maple syrup and pancakes. Where's my LLBean boots? I gotta go chop some wood.
I was curious where Kostroma was, so I asked google (maps.google.com). It's about 200 miles north/northeast of Mockba (or Moscow, as we know it better). It doesn't have maps for that area, but it has satellite pics (!!!) and by looking at the map on the moose site and the satellite pics, I found where it must be.....
Oh the places we can go.... Virtually, if not actually.......
no, they stopped having mooses in the army, because the king thought it went to fast riding them. by that tine they thought that humanbodies cant travel to fast. that it would be unhealthy...
It's the slightly moth-eaten nose fur in the last pic that gets me.