`WE'RE MAD COWS ON PARADE'.

Byline: Rebecca Nolan The Register-Guard

Gray cow, green cow, orange cow, brown cow.

They're dancing in the street, shaking their udders, whipping their ropy tails to the driving beat of the Samba Ja percussionists, who led the Procession of All Species parade through downtown Eugene on Saturday.

Orange cow, also known as Cowmen Mooranda, had tropical fruit piled between her horns.

Gray cow, whose human name is Tony Glidden, had his big pink tongue hanging out and he was licking all the ladies.

"We're mad cows on parade," said the brown cow, who was so mad she forgot her name. "We're madder than hell and we're not going to take it anymore."

Green cow Judy Bell said the herd was vegetarian.

"We're promoting tofu and soy products," she said through her papier mache head.

Everyone was promoting something Saturday at the fifth annual Earth Day Celebration at Broadway Plaza.

Booths lined the streets and offered information on everything from energy conservation, public transportation, forest preservation and outdoor exploration.

Children made greeting cards from recycled products at the BRING Recycling booth. Others painted forest scenes on old bed sheets a few booths down.

At the Worm Digest booth, children painted wooden boxes built by Roosevelt Middle School woodshop students. The boxes will house red worms, which eat kitchen scraps and produce supercharged fertilizer for the garden, said Zorba Frankel, Worm Digest managing editor.

Caleb Donahue, 4 1/2 , painted his box purple, green and black. Then he filled it with dampened, shredded newspaper and put his newly adopted red worms inside.

Caleb already helps take care of a large worm composting bin, but now he finally has his own to tend, his mom Anne Donahue said.

"Do we throw away leftover food, Caleb?" she said. Caleb shook his head.

"What do we do with it?" she asked. Caleb pointed to the squiggly worms inside his new worm bin. He said he'll feed his new friends leftover toast, cooked beans and old lettuce.

The highlight of the event was the parade of people dressed as birds, turtles, bees and, of course, cows.

They danced their way around town, entertaining shoppers at Saturday Market and along Broadway, all under the guidance of Samba Ja band leader Jake Pegg who, with a stuffed pink octopus on his head, hollered, "Samba Ja, are you ready to rock?"

CAPTION(S):

A quartet of "Mad Cows" were the highlight of Earth Day festivities Saturday in downtown Eugene. The cows were promoting vegetarianism. Beneath blue skies, Marianne Moore marches beneath a school of anchovies during the Procession of All Species parade.