Two White Mules

 

Well, today was an interesting day. Tracy, Linda, Leesa and I planned to go riding. I was going to pick up Tracy and we would meet Linda and Leesa in Phippsburg. We invited Cierra to ride with us but she had a riding lesson so couldn't go with us. I got up early enough to have time to get ready. I fed Lily then after hitching my trailer up, I took it for a short trip down the round  making sure my brakes were adjusted properly. I got back and caught Lily and led her to the trailer, pointed her in and she stopped, took a look inside and said, "Nope, not today". What!!!! Lily has been wonderful about loading since the day I got her. Unfortunately, she really meant it. After a few more refusals, I kind of lost it as I KNOW she is not afraid of the trailer. The impatient angry person approach to loading wasn't really very successful. I finally stopped, took a breath and tried a quieter and more persistent approach and in a fairly short time I had Lily on the trailer. Of course now I'm running a bit late. I called Tracy to tell her I was just leaving my house and headed down the road. As I'm getting to the end of my road, I'm hearing a noise I should not be hearing. I rolled down my window and hear a scrape, scrape, scrape sound that is way to much like the sound I was hearing when the wheel came off my trailer. So, I did not dare to go any further and turned around and went back home, unloaded Lily and put her back in her paddock. I called Tracy to say I would not be coming to pick her up. After some discussion, she decided she would just come to my house to ride. I called Linda and Leesa to let them know that Tracy and I would not be meeting them. A few minutes later, they called back and said they were not far from home yet so would just come to my house to ride also. I have such good friends. Then Tracy called me to say she wasn't sure when she's arrive as her mule, Ellie Mae, had gotten loose and run off. Thankfully, it didn't take her long to catch her as she didn't go past the first apple tree she came to.

When Lisa and Linda arrived I went back out to catch Lily. I'm figuring that she is now not going to want to have anything to do with me or with going anywhere near the trailer, where I was going to be tacking her up, after the trailer loading incident earlier. But not so. She saw me and came right to me and led up to the trailer with no hesitation. Yet another example of just how forgiving mules are. Tracy was not that far behind Linda and Leesa and we were soon ready to go. Lily was pretty good about mounting today. We took the lead right off and before we had even gotten out of sight of my yard we met Cierra coming back from her lesson. So, she ended up joining us after all.
 

 

We headed out towards the alpaca farm but did the loop that had not trail for part of it. I've never bothered marking a trail though as the woods are so open and clear though there that there is no need to mark a trail. Once back out on the main trail, I asked everyone if they wanted to try a trail I've only done a few times that come out very close to the turnpike overpass. Cierra and I did it last year and the trail was fairly good. Everyone was up for trying it. We got within sight of the road and could not make it all the way through. there was a nasty muddy spot that none of us wanted to try going through. So, we turned around and headed back.

We then took the trail that comes out below the alpaca farm. At the stream crossing, I took the lead as I wanted to go across first and then take pictures of the others coming across. There is a steep bank drop into the stream and a short steep climb out. It's all very good footing though so very safe. I've done the crossing with Lily quite a few times and the last time I led across. So, I pointed Lily down the back towards the stream, she looks down and says, "not today"...... And I said, "yes, TODAY". It took a while but I finally convinced her that I was more determined we were going to cross that stream first then she was determined not to. Once we were on the other side, I turned, got my camera out and as the others started to come across, the camera pooped out! Gurrrrrrrr. I only got one picture of anyone crossing. We came out on the Academy Rd. and took that to the trail back into the woods by the overpass. I led quite a bit but Leesa's Billy Bob would often work his way to the front where he likes to be. Linda's Gus is always happy to follow. Tracy usually takes the back with Ellie Mae as she doesn't care to have horses behind her. The rest of the ride home was nice with all the mules and horses being on their best behavior. We got in some nice stretches of trotting today.

Oh, and the good news is it turned out there was nothing wrong with my trailer.
The bad news is the sound was coming from my truck.