Last night the mancattle were even crazier than last week. The Hobbosses say the mancattle are particularly sensitive to the movement of the moons around Louise 6e, and last night was a real doozy. All twelve were out when I got woken up by the weirdest mooing and lowing I'd ever heard from the beasts.

The Hobbosses had left the campfire again, and I made it out to the same flat field I'd found them in before. The Hobbosses had them all rounded up in a circle, but this time the mancattle were wild and snarling and in some kind of feeding frenzy! Leaping over each other and ripping and tearing and growling at each other with the most loathsome howls you ever heard.

I stared and watched it for a spell (from a healthy distance of course) and turned back in when I'd had enough. It was gruesome.

This morning the mancattle were real quiet and lazy. Slept for half the morning. And a lot of them had stains on the mouths of both heads.

Oh boy tonight's the night! It's a special hoedown just for me and my closest friends!!!

The Hobbosses have a special anti-grav wagon set up for me and a select few of my best buds (yay @Pexli Dume!) and we're headed out for a real show since all 12 moons come out tonight and they all line up and there's a special place they take special people like me to go out and see it! They've prepared a special honorary meal and a special kind of cactus milk they make just for this special night.

I feel so... I can't even think of the word!!!! It's like all my dreams are coming true for this whole trip.

According to all the NDAs I signed I'm not supposed to talk about it, but something about all this Fedge "science" doesn't add up. I've been tagging and cataloging all of these interplanetary genetic samples, supposedly in preparation for comparison and synthesis into the mancattle, and it all "seems" like science, with computers and beakers and the curly glass tubes in the air, and all the machines that seem so "advanced," but I know enough about exobiology to know none of it amounts to anything. And none of it is headed to the "big room" at all.

So just what IS going on in that room? Were they ever going to give me clearance?

Looks like I passed all the tests at the roundup center and the Hobbosses say I'm ready for the big one. We did the salt lick, and the three-eyed sheep dip, the cactus milk blinding taste test, and rutting.

They've given me a special bunk in the roundup center and say I can eat all the food I want, and boy do they have a fancy banquet set up: mancattle short ribs, sundae bar with underwater nuts, pots and pots of those dancing beans.

Is a little bit lonely though. I'm asking the Hobbosses if I can't bring some friends along! I miss my old bunkmate @Pexli Dume.

Couldn't sleep tonight, curled up on my bedroll around the dying campfire. Louise 6e was looming large, and you could see a good six moons doing their dance. I think it was the lowing of the mancattle woke me up. Sometimes they make those noises at night, but tonight it was especially odd. And then I noticed all the Hobbosses were all missing. Usually they snore up a storm, but there weren't any to be seen.

So I picked myself up and followed the lowing, and over a small rise or two I saw the strangest thing I've seen so far on the low gravity prairie.

The Hobbosses had the mancattle all rounded up, but the mancattle were acting real strange. Lined up in circles, concentric-like, each ring walking in the opposite direction. But the worse part was THEY WERE STANDING UP ON TWO LEGS!! Kind of swaying back and forth, lowing in a rhythm, their big pairs of horned heads bobbing back and forth.

The Hobbosses never mentioned anything like that before, and I had a feeling there was a reason. I snuck back to my bedroll and closed my eyes and pretended to sleep till dawn.

But seriously WTF???

Has anybody seen my bunkmate @Nip Tucker? Goofy looking weirdo? We're supposed to clean out the kpony stalls together but I've been stuck with doing it myself every day. Worst. Trip. Ever.

The Fedge have some incredibly advanced technology. They've got genetic samples from half the galaxy, which have all been sent in voluntarily. There's a contest where you send in some tentacle fur or an extra eye or whatever you have and they pick one every month and send them a side of mancattle. Mancattle is very popular. Everybody loves the mancattle.

So then they map the genetic sequences and synthesize the tastiest tendencies and use them to help make the mancattle even tastier. I've been working on the intake line, breaking down the sequences and tagging them. Pretty soon they say I'll get to go to the "big room" where the real magic happens. Can't wait!

I thought my yodeling skills might keep me out of having to work the mancattle drive but no such luck. The Hobbosses must be sweet on me, and now they keep needling me to yodel around the campfire at night. The Hobbbosses laugh and their big rolls of fat jiggle like jello.

I feel like I'm getting too attached to the mancattle though. How much longer will I enjoy eating them? They look up at you with their two heads and their dopey eyes and I swear they look almost human.

But that mancattle meat is mighty sweet.

I wasn't any good at hypersonic yodeling or talking to the telepathic Larabbits or even slicegrass sowing but the Hobbosses said they could really use me in the mancattle! Yeehaw! Get to go to their big off-limits roundup center and get initiated to all the secrets. Nothing like this ever happens to me I am so stoked.

It was hard to get accepted into the Alien Animal Husbandry program on Orion Ranch. The Fedge have real old fashioned ideas about letting girls "see how it's done" but my grades in AP exobiology must have convinced them.

I'm not squeamish about the mancattle's tackle (if you know what I mean). I'm a big girl and all. But really they rarely ever let them do it the old fashioned way. The mancattle are too special, and the last thing you want is to have one get injured.

So yeah there's a whole lot more to it than that. Very excited to learn!