Let the (cow) chips fall where they may...

They've been called meadow muffins, pasture patties and cow pies.

Not to be confused with the donkey apple, the cow chip -- a disc of dung sun-dried into nature's Frisbee -- has been around since, well, the very first bovine grazer.

And as long as cowpokes have wiled away the day on the prairie, they've been tossed for distance or target practice.

"When we were kids, you would throw them at your buddy," Petaluma dairy farmer Frank Gambonini said. "It becomes common practice."

A weekend Cow Chip Throwing Contest keeps the scatological tradition alive, kicking off in front the Mystic Theater on Petaluma Boulevard at 10 a.m. Saturday as part of the annual Butter & Egg Days festival.

Butter & Egg Days cow-chip chairman Tom Corbett recently demonstrated how to harvest the perfect pie as Gambonini held a flat piece of cardboard. A dozen cows gathered around to watch as Corbett slid a shovel under a 10-inch diameter pie and set it on the cardboard platter.

"It all started on the farms and the ranches," Corbett said. "A lot of people have contests on their farms and have for many, many decades, maybe hundreds of years. And it's all because they're so ideal for throwing."

Times have changed since buffalo hunters used buffalo chips to light their campfires. Back then, "never kick a cow chip on a hot day" was a popular cowboy proverb.

Now, the World Cow Chip Throwing Championship goes down every April in Beaver, Okla. Bovine Bingo, a lottery decided by where a cow chip falls in a dirt grid, is a popular fund-raiser in the Midwest.

In Petaluma, it's all about bragging rights. Fire Chief Chris Albertson has taken home the prize several times. Last year's winner, civil engineer John Fitzgerald, likes to joke that the environment plays a vital role in every toss off.

"It depends on barometric pressure and wind velocity basically," he said. "It's both a mental and physical game."

Strategy is crucial. Some contestants attempt an Olympic discus technique, but that occasionally results in a stray pie into the audience. Also, a careful grooming of the pie -- trimming the grass sprouting from the edges -- is recommended to prevent wind drag.

Standing in a Clover-Stornetta warehouse parking lot where the carefully harvested chips have been drying for weeks, Fitzgerald reared back and winged a chip into the distance using a forehand Frisbee technique instead of the traditional backhand throw.

"What do you think -- about 150 feet?" he asked, stretching his arm overhead like a baseball pitcher, except he wasn't wearing a glove.

"That could be a winner," Corbett said.

And this year, for the first time, the annual throwdown introduces the rarefied donkey apple -- donkey dung dried to the size of a racquetball -- for the kids.

"The cow chips are often too big for them," Corbett said. "They need something they can throw, too."

Check out John Beck's culture blog at pop.pressdemocrat.com.