Ride in Turner and Visit from a Mule Lover

Luke and Louie hanging out at the barn

It was a great mule day today. When I rode Luke last Friday, he was quite tender over the rocks so I knew I was going to have to put shoes on him. Darn!! But, I don't want him to hurt so shoes it is. I called my farrier   Saturday and let him know. Wonderful man that he is, he came over first thing this morning at 7:00 am to put shoes on Luke so I could go riding today. It was my day off and my husband was working so I was free from barn work. And, the weather was lovely so I very much appreciated him coming so I could ride today!

Luke was not overly impressed with the process of being shod. He is a good boy to handle and good with picking up his feet. I'm not sure if he has ever been shod but know he hasn't as long as Kyle has owned him. Luke seemed to think that all the unaccustomed pounding of his feet was quite unnecessary. He was not bad at all but did kick out once in disgust. It was a very slow not aimed at anyone kick. Just an "I don't like this and I want you to know it" thing. Scott was great with Luke and got the job done with little fuss. Luke was to later appreciate Scott's efforts.

My friend Linda picked me up around 9:00 am and we headed over to the Androscoggin Riverlands state park. It is a lovely area to ride with a nice 15 mile loop of multi use trails. I have not been there in a while as there are a LOT of bridges along this trail and some were not really equine friendly. They were sturdy enough but were slatted wood and the slats were spaced just a little too far apart. I had heard that the bridges had been modified to be safe for equines so we decided to check it out to see.

Luke was happy to head out on an adventure with his new friend Gus and happily loaded right up into the trailer. We got slightly lost getting there but didn't get off track too far. We were soon tacked up and ready to ride. The first part of the trail, which is an old dirt road, has some metal grate drainage ditches across it. They are not wide and can easily be stepped over but look strange to the equines. Luke eyeballed the first one pretty hard but only hesitated a moment before going over. And of course there are the multitude of bridges. Much to our delight, the bridges have indeed been made safe for equines to cross. Luke had no issues with any of the bridges. The slatted board bridges have had vertical slats added in the middle for equines. It's not real wide but fine as long as your equine isn't acting foolish and walks straight across. And none of those bridges are long at all, 6 feet or so at most. All the longer bridges have solid decking. Some of the trail here is quite rocky but Luke with his new shoes did great over this. No more ouchie steps. We did quite a lot of trotting anywhere we could. This trail is slightly hilly and Luke did wonderful with both the pace and the distance. I was so happy to see that he seems to have good stamina. I kind of wondered how he would do with his mamma being a Percheron. Not your typical choice of breeding for a distance riding equine. But though he is tall, he's not that heavily built and easily handled what we did today. We met a couple ATV's and that didn't concern Luke at all. We also met a few hikers. The only one that Luke worried about was one hiker that was using two walking stick. Luke was very hesitant to pass him but still didn't make a big fuss, just froze up for a moment, then scurried by. Linda and I just had a real lovely ride. I offered Luke soaked beet pulp when we got back to the trailer. I even put in some hay stretcher pellets to make it more appealing. But, he was not impressed with this offering. He did nibble a bit of it if I held it for him. I told him this was very good food for endurance equines and that Arabs love it. Luke told me that he didn't care what sissy Arab's eat, that mules with real horses as mamma's like his Percheron mom eat REAL food like oats and hay. Gus, on the other hand, was happy to snarf down what Luke didn't want. But then, though we are not sure of Gus's breeding, we highly suspect he has some sissy Arab in him. We sponged Luke and Gus off then loaded up and headed home. We got slightly lost on the way home! 

Not long after I got home, Annie Higbee and her daughter came to my house. Annie had contacted me about Louie as she is interested in buying a mule. Louie was already sold when she contacted me but she had asked if she could come and look at my mules anyway as she is trying to learn as much as she can about them. We had a real nice visit. Louie performed his fetching and bowing much to every one's delight. Then, I let Annie ride Luke around the pasture. He was the best of boys for her and the perfect mule ambassador! Annie's daughter had been thinking she really wanted a horse but I think Luke won her over. All in all a very good mule day today