WILTON – Meadow muffin, cow pie, bovine bomb or just simply manure, whatever one chooses to call it, a pile of poop proved profitable to one lucky winner Saturday. Lisa Panori of Farmington said the $1,000 she won “came just in time for oil season.”

The Franklin Association of Churches, organizer of the event, sold 180 tickets raising $800 for two mission trips to the little village of Quimistan, Honduras, to build a home and community center for a pastor there. The association of seven United Churches of Christ from Rangeley, Industry, Strong, Phillips, Farmington, Wilton, New Sharon and Weld will sponsor a trip in December and another in June. Twenty-eight participants, including 15 youths, will make the trip this winter.

Each $10 ticket was assigned a number on a grid layed out on a field behind Academy Hill School in Wilton. Bessy the cow ambled aimlessly for several hours, keeping observers guessing and hoping her deposit would land in their square. Expectant spectators stood outside the roped-in playing field, cooing to the Holstein in the hopes of wooing her to their quadrant.

And as interesting as watching the dogie dawdle were two adolescent emcees entertaining the small gathering. “Why do cows moo?” asked 11-year-old Chase Gaewski of Readfield. “Because they like to make beautiful moosic,” he retorted, eliciting groans from the crowd.

He and his 12-year-old cohort, Russ Bayreuther, regaled the cow cadre with musical interludes through a megaphone including “Do You Know the Muffin Man?”

After more than two hours, the hit square 232, ending the mystery on a foggy, finger-nipping day.

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