Donkey Wars on Facebook

Ass jokes.  It never ends.  Brother Mike lives on the acre adjacent to ours.  His jack Donkey Otey is an escape artist, and about once in every while, he gets out.  Studs being what they are, they will fight to the death if they could.  Usually they fight all night long, and we wake up to two exhausted jacks who still want to kill each other.  Rusty normally gets the worst of it.

Facebook got a whiff of the battle today.  Thought I'd share.  That'd be the missus trying to referee the Donkey wars on Facebook.  Keeping it family friendly one ass joke at a time.

Battle hardened warrior 

Blood, sweat, and flung-dung are a sure sign of a heated battle

Donkey Otey, separated from Rusty and still full of piss and vinegar!

You're nothin' but a "it"

Happy Independence day!

This mule tune is gonna be stuck in my head all day.  Thanks a lot Festus... No wonder he named his John mule "Ruth."

"You get no love cause you're nothin' but a it"
 
"I plumb forgive her because he's nothin' but a it"

And this, ode to the mule, in melodic patriotism.

Trainwreck

Man enough to lead a green pack mule.  Boy enough to tie a random stick behind his saddle.

She stopped and leaned back on the rope instead of hopping over the log behind Preston's young mule, Senator.  She is quite young herself.  At two years old, Midnight Storm is a bit mustangy.   Her mother is a Sulpher herd mustang with a little bit of a mean streak and an unforgiving buck.  Midnight inherited an uncanny wariness and an extra dose of fight or flight to compliment her mulish intelligence.  And she has never forgiven me for roaching her mane against her will when she was a baby .  

Preston had done a magnificent job leading Midnight from Mill Flat to North Valley, and she had complied with her pack job sans complaint until she stopped at that log on the edge of the meadow.  We were just a few hundred yards from camp.  This was her second pack trip, the first being a year ago--just a few light things to try and give her some experience.  When we left the trail head the day before, Preston led a two-up train consisting of Calamity Jane and Minnie Pearl, tied nose to tail.  But the first time leading two-up made him slightly nervous and he requested to lead the very green Midnight for the rest of the trip.  We didn't dare tie her to anybody or anything.

After a couple of futile tries to get Midnight over the log, she laid down to roll.  She carried a lot of supplies, canvas, sawbuck, and rope on her topside.  After a while, the urge to scratch the itch under the pack blanket must have been unbearable.  Getting all that gear on Midnight in the first place was its own rodeo.  Every item was suspect.   Like a sweaty piece of dynamite that could explode at the slightest provocation, she inspected each piece of gear with muscles taught.  So we loaded her with care, hoping to avoid an accidental discharge.  Once the load was set, the danger passed, and she was happy to follow along as part of the mule train.

She stood back up, still on the wrong side of the log, and at Preston's urging, Midnight finally made the jump.  Her well balanced load had shifted to the right after laying down, and slipped even more when she landed on the other side.  But sweaty dynamite is never safe.  With all the percussion and earth-shattering shock of a stick of TNT, Midnight blew up.  She didn't finish blowing up until the only thing left was the sawbuck hanging from her belly.  Epic train-wreck! 

After the dust settled I tied Midnight to a stout tree, and one of the nearby Boy Scouts that we were packing into Scout Camp helped me resaddle and repack the load.   Preston ran after my mule train that had decided to trot on ahead.  Gear was scattered all over the meadow.  The manty that held the load was shredded.   But we gathered it up and repacked the very skittish young mule--we didn't have far to go.  By the time it was over, we had experienced other train-wrecks on the trip, but this blowup was the biggest in terms of affect.  Preston finally returned with my three mules after catching up to them half a mile away.  It was then that I noticed that something was different with my 9 year old boy.  After all the trauma that usually goes with run-away mules and violent mule tantrums, Preston just smiled, retook Midnight's cotton rope and finished leading our train to camp.   "Dad?" he said.  "Should we give Midnight a new nickname?" He was referring to Leon's pet name for one of Brother Mike's horses, dubbed affectionately Superglue.  "Sure Bud.  How about 'Trainwreck'?"  

It is the stuff of nicknames, and boys, growing up.

Leading out with a two-up, nose-to-tail train.

Leon in man-pain after his packhorse rears back into Kevin's truck and caves the rear panel...kneeing him in the groin in the process.

Preston leans down to pick up her lead, just moments before the train wreck 

Headed back off the mountain with a different load--this time?  No wrecks.

Valleys High... Boys to Men

Unscripted Moments...boys chasing outlaws

Pine Valley Mountain hides her glory from all but the most ambitious travelers.  Nested in heavily guarded, densely timbered peaks atop the world's largest laccolith, several lush valleys offer a taste of summer paradise that can only be experienced in a few places.   These valleys carry simple names: South Valley, Whipple, North Valley, West Valley, and Katy Lane.  There are others, but these valleys lie in the heart of the heights--and getting there requires significant effort.  The trails are steep, rocky, and often covered in downed timber.  The reward for breaking out into Pine Valley Mountain's valleys is pure mountain air. Thin, laced with sweet pine and salty marsh, breathing it is sheer joy.

Leon and I don't need much excuse to get out of the 105 degree heat that is here already.  We have a scout camp coming up that needs to be scouted out so that we can be prepared for 25 or so teenaged boys who lack experience, but want a high adventure trip in a couple of weeks with pack stock on Pine Valley Mountain.  So, we took our own little guys up for Father's Day weekend.  High adventure with young boys still brimming with imagination and toothless grins reminds me of why I love the title 'Father' more than any of the other titles that I claim.   Observing the movement and bearing of small boys is a taste of Gilead's Balm:

Little boys ride horses and mules like men, with fierce determination... while they laugh and whack at the old names carved in the stands of quaking aspens with some stick they picked up on the trail.


Little boys camp and cook like men, with dirty-faced pleasure... while they chase each other over rock and log with toy guns that they created by the sheer force of imagination from punkwood lying around our heavy canvas tent.


Little boys lead and pack stock like men, with John Wayne's true grit... while they hold the lead rope from a pack mule in their teeth and squeeze aside hidden, dusty tears as they use both hands to remount a dancing saddle mule that wants to go.

Fatherhood hides His glory from all but the most ambitious travelers.  Secretly nested in a culture that entices men with fortune, fame and vice, while providing a cacophony of sensory numbing entertainment for little boys, lies the Valley of Fatherhood.  Climbing the barriers to good fatherhood requires significant effort.  Today's rocky trails soften our boys and forge compliant men with effeminate temperament, who fear rugged individualism.  Life's downed timber enforces group-think and squashes critical thought.  Like the short summer season at altitude, the opportunity to BE father is fleeting.  Fatherhood.  It is far too short.  And the moment where a boy can learn to be a man, from his father must be seized without delay.  But the reward for breaking out into the Valley of Fatherhood is sweet fraternal affection and salty masculine jocularity--and breathing it is sheer JOY!

Kolob formations to the East

Always time for a little trick riding

...and always a stick to whack whatever needs whacking

That sweet mountain music

Feeling Mutual on a Sunday Night

Evening has rolled in with all of its contentment and restful Sunday bliss.  Improving upon this silence takes effort.  After being prodded by an occasional reader, I just wanted to say that I am not as absent as my blog appears.  Part of my problem is that if I can't say it better than I did the first time... I'm OK saying nothing at all.

BUT, I do have tales in the hopper and trips planned which brim with promise.  As soon as I get some closure, I will have volumes to say about a scrape with Wyoming's own Wyatt Earp after being accomplice to a horse rescue on our last Windrivers pack trip.  I find good story in the experience with political implications about how the mis-application of law contributes to bad citizenship.  I'm pretty sure I'll be naming names...

My tolerant wife is committed to joining me and a couple of the kids for our annual pack trip in July--this time in the Uinta Wilderness.  I've spent enough tourist money in Wyoming for a while--both voluntarily and involuntarily.  Plus, I miss the  rich meadows at the foot of those bally peaks.  So, Longears and Sourdough lives, quietly, contentedly, on a Sunday night.

Man's relationship to the horse...

Nichole Cliffe over at the Hairpin explains the horse.  She knows what she is talking about.  Relevant excerpts below:

"If you haven't spent a lot of time around horses, you may have the idea that they are like dogs and cats (really big, dangerous dogs and cats). This is untrue. YOU are like dogs and cats, in that you are a predator. Let's not get sucked into the canines/intestines/primates-eating-fruit aspect of our disputed status as omnivores. The fact is, if someone says to you "hey, let's try this new brunch place that has amazing cocktails," there's a decent chance you'll say "great, meet you there." Your dog feels similarly. New things are fun! That is because you are a predator.

"Prey animals do not think new things are fun. New things, if you are a prey animal, usually mean a swift death. Horses are like deer. They see something unexpected, they freeze for a second, and then they book it on out of there. They don't like to leave the herd. They have no interest in breakfast cocktails. If you try to take your horse to a new brunch place, you need to convince them that a) you've been there before, b) there are no cave trolls at the brunch place, c) there will be other horses at the brunch place, and d) you will be a royal pain in their ass until they quit dicking around and agree to go to the brunch place.

"What happens, though, when you fall in love with an ill-advised horse, is you become kind of a wonderful bitch, in a good way. You have to be braver than you really are, or you'll get hurt. You have to fake it. You have to convince this beautiful, dumb, flighty creature that you are a strong and bossy person who knows what's best. You need to pretend you're a horse, as a rider, in a way you never really have to empathize with your dog or cat. "Oh, there's a plastic bag drifting across the arena. That's terrifying." "That other mare is in heat, and if I get too close to her, she's going to kick me in the face." "Everyone's getting fed right now, so we kind of want to duck out at the gate."

"Horses are sublime. They're gorgeous mythical beasts that emerge from antiquity to destroy your bank account and break your collarbone. They're fragile. They're dangerous. They need new shoes every six to eight weeks. They eat your heart. They fall in love with your vet, and deliberately colic themselves in order to spend more time with him.

"You are not vitally important to your horse, not really, not like you are to your dog, ever. They never figure out who you are, and why you do the silly things you do. You have to forge a relationship with your horse while knowing that, given the chance, they'd probably rather hang out with their buddies than spend time with you. But then, one day you pull up to the barn, and you realize that your horse has memorized the sound of your car, as opposed to other people's cars, and has wandered over to the gate to greet you.

"It makes you feel lucky. Not just "oh, God, I can afford to do this idiotic sport" lucky, which you should feel every day, but some kind of stupid semi-spiritual lucky, because you've managed to connect with an animal ten times your size, and convinced them to ignore every instinct they possess in order to let you clamber onto their back and stick a metal bar in their mouth. It's crazy. It doesn't make any sense.

"You're a horse-person now. Maybe it'll pay off when the zombies come, and the gas pumps stop working."

Mustang Steel

Mother Nature's crucible is a refiners fire.  Life's overwhelming desire to be has gifted the wild horse with incredibly perfect feet.  Horse meat is high on the carnivores' totem pole of meal choices, and a horse without sound feet is an easy meal.  So, the genetics for lousy feet were weeded from the Mustang herds long ago.

I was reminded of this fact today while out trimming Kate's feet.  Kissin' Kate Barlow, our Sulphur herd Mustang has the most beautiful feet of any equine that I have ever examined.  And they are hard as steel.   It takes all my strength to cut through them with my long handled nippers, and the sharp teeth on my file feel like they are grabbing sheer substance as they bite the dense keratin of Kate's hooves.

But Nature didn't just give her a set of Mustang Steels to protect her life.  Nature gave her works of art.   Them's some beauts!

Fasten Your Seat Belts

Cameras don't often tell the full story.  My little iPhone sort of blunted the difficulty of what you are about to see.  I have been up this little draw a couple of times in the past, and my seasoned companions always shake their heads in dis-belief.  Even Jim who routinely takes us into technical territory won't try this steep draw himself.

This ride yesterday was extra good, because Preston and our foreign exchange student Yuya, who had never seen an equine before and is only on his third ride here, follow me up.  Of course, the mules make it look a bit easier than it is... but if you'll watch the dogs, especially the brown one that comes last, they will tell the story that the iPhone will not.

The St George Pioneer Trek documentary

I couldn't quite figure out how to embed the video, but you can watch the whole thing here.  It is about 23 minutes long, and captures the essence of the experience pretty well, with some good food for thought.

The St George City 150th birthday Pioneer Trek documentary

How'd they do it?

Minnie Pearl and the Accidental Tourist

Her:  We have a 15 year old exchange student from Japan coming to live with us for two months, Dear.

Me:  Japan?  Where's that?  Does he speak English?  

Her:  Pffft!  What do you mean where's Japan?  And no he doesn't speak English.

Me:  So what is he here for?  

Her:  He is here to have the full cultural experience of living with an American family and doing whatever they do day to day, going where ever they go, that kind of thing.

Me:  Has he ever seen a horse or a mule?  Does he like John Wayne?

Her:  I don't know?  Why don't you ask him yourself when he gets here?

Me:  You know I'm going to make a mule-skinner out of him, don'tcha?

Her: Yes Dear.  

************

His name is Yuya.  Night number 2,  we watched The Cowboys on the big screen.  By the time it was over, he had learned that his favorite movie star was John Wayne, which he could declare with the coolest accent you ever heard.  Ever heard a Japanese kid say "John Wayne?"  You need to.

He began doing chores with Preston each morning and night starting on day one.  He got so good at it, that we let him do it all by himself while Preston was gone for 3 days last week.

Then we dressed him up like the real deal and put him on Minnie Pearl.  He asked for no quarter, and we gave him none.  After 7 hours in the saddle Saturday doing everything we did from running in the flats, to scrambling over the ledges, he smiled and said he liked it.  The next day, he said he wasn't saddle sore.

What a tough little buggar!  What a great little mule.  

Yuya and Minnie Pearl!  Glad you came to stay.  Gonna miss you when you leave...

Dan Stephenson on the sweetest Tennessee Walking mule...

Cattle Punchin' Facebook

There are two kinds of noise that dull the senses.  Both are found in the city.  And both can be avoided in the places where cattle range.  One type of noise is of the discordant, analogue variety which rattles against your eardrums like the loose exhaust on an old pickup driving down a washboardy dirt road.  The living city pulses with this type of noise as the sound of traffic, sirens, and frenetic movement bang, clank and rumble until your ears finally become brittle and wear out.

The other type of noise is of the digital variety which rattles in your brain like the skywave chatter one finds while scanning the AM radio dial after dark.  Today's city throbs with bits and bytes, pushing information to boxes that sit on our desks and fit in our pockets until relevant truths get lost in the white-noise of it all.  Nearly every human and every piece of information on Earth is accessible to me through the iPhone in my hand, at light speed!  No wonder driving cows is such a relief.   Even in the quiet of this place, tinnitus rings in my ears, and my brain chomps at the bit for the next piece of news.  It almost takes great effort not to hear it.

I waited a long time to join the smart phone revolution.  The fear of breaking an expensive computer kept me in the dumb phone market because I could get mil-spec toughness there.  My old Casio is the first phone that outlasted me.  But in my profession, it isn't wise to get behind the technology curve, so I finally wandered into the Verizon store and wrapped an iPhone in an Otterbox with the hopes that it will survive what a mule-skinner can dish out.

So as I sat on my mule Saturday punching cows, I realized my new phone will take pretty good photos... which led to the next realization that I could push those photos to Facebook with the help of my new digital secretary, Siri.  Before the mules were loaded back in the horse trailer, much to my delight, friends and relatives from diverse time zones saw my cattle drive through the buck-horn sights of Calamity Jane's ears and had their say-so.  And from the mesa tops East, above the Hurricane fault, Ballard's cows unwittingly punched Facebook.

My sweet girl-kid 

Little Uncle Sam in the duster.

Leon and Andy hidin' under hat

Back in line you leather headed heifers

Kolob formations dead ahead

All is well... Preston on his own self-broke mule, Senator