Play day

Today I had double duty stall cleaning as I did not pick out stalls yesterday (in favor of getting as much sleep as possible so I could go play at the beach with my mule....) Anyway, it was a lovely day today and got quite warm. After I'd picked out the stalls, I was picking the paddock area that we keep free of snow as I hate snowblowing frozen turds which become dangerous projectiles. All the equines were eating hay when I started my chores. But, eventually Louie left his hay to come get some mule loveing of which he got plenty. I finally left him to go empty the wheel barrow. My feed room door was open as I'd been going in and out of there and I have to remember that I now have a 5 year old boy mule that is always looking for some entertainment........ I'm part way back from the manure pile when I hear the sounds of shod feet on plywood floor..........DANG IT! I knew either River mule had come up from the bottom pasture or Louie mule had gone down. About that time, I see a moose trotting belly snorting Louie come flying along the bottom paddock fenceline. That answered that question...... I went into the barn and closed River's stall door (which had also not been latched) so Louie would not come back through the feed room. I decided to just ignore him and let him blow off some steam. River mule just watched him and finally Louie trotted up to him with a "wanna play" look. River said "ok, play with my teeth bonehead" and promptly took a hunk out of Louies hide. Louie promptly decided he did NOT want to play with River mule.

Then I started to get worried because that paddock is boardered by the river which is frozen right now, covered with snow and not fenced off. All of my equines that are famaliar with that paddock know where the river is and simply won't walk out onto it when frozen. Louie has never been in that paddock and is not familiar with where the river is. There is about 75' of flood plain before getting to the river which has been flooded and frozen over. But that was also also covered with a light coat of snow. Louie went down to the bottom of the hill to the edge of the flood plain. He clearly wanted to invtigate further but for some reason decided not to. PHEW!!!! Wheather it is the lack of tracks down there so he could see that River mule had not gone down there or he could tell it was all ice under the snow I don't know. The river is frozen solid enough to hold a mule no problem so no worry of him going through the ice, but I wasn't eager to be chasing my mule around the neighborhood.

After a little while though, once he'd checked out this new and unexplored territory, and realized that River mule was neither going to play with him or share his hay. So, Louie came back up and when I opened the gate and came right through back into his own paddock. Silly mule!!!! It was fun watching him though. (other then the worry of him going out onto the river) as he was like a little kid in a new playground.