To Bee or not to Bee...

Today I headed over to High Knob to ride with Anthony. It was warm today but overcast and sprinkled a little but nothing to discourage riding. It rained yesterday so Lily was one very dirty mule. It took a bit of grooming to get her to sort of off white. I decided that any real white was not not a realistic goal for today. Lily was good about loading into the trailer and we got to camp around 9:45am. Lily was quiet when I saddled her up, no fussing at all. I went down to Anthony's camp and tied Lily to his trailer to wait for the group to get ready to ride. It was a while and Lily stood quietly the whole time. I was impressed with how patient she was.

There were 5 of us riding. When we headed out Lily was excited to get going but settled in easily in the 4th position. Lily has gotten very good about adjusting her pace to the equine in front of her. I only have to give her occasionally reminders to not crowd them. We here headed to Rice Hollow and rode by the spring and Cowboy Hideout.

We crossed High Knob Rd and I asked Lily to take the lead there. She gave a little protest but it was over the direction of travel, not over taking the lead. But it was just a head shake and hesitation. A bump with my heals and verbal correction and we headed off up the trail. We got up to a spot where there is a big rock the mule riders like to play around on. The more brave mule riders that is. It's quite a big jump up onto the rock. Anthony was riding Inca, a smaller mule and didn't want to ask her to jump up on the rock with him on her but asked me, as Lily is a big girl, if she would jump up there with me on. I knew Lily would not be all that excited about jumping up there with or without me and I was not inclined to try. Anthony got off Inca and climbed up on the rock and she jumped up after him. He got back down and asked again if I wanted to try Lily out on the rock even just leading her up there. He said he would help me get her up. I hesitated because I knew it would probably take a while to get Lily up on that rock and I didn't want to hold up the people I was riding with. But as usual, I did not listen to the voice of reason in my head and hopped off Lily. Anthony climbed back up on the rock and took Inca up with him knowing Lily would be more willing if another mule was up there. I handed him her lead rope and he asked her to hop up. She was much more willing to try than I expected but really wasn't sure how to handle it. She kept rearing up trying to figure out where to put her feet but just couldn't decide. She'd get back on all four feet and swing her hind end around trying to find another way to get up or just get around. She did this maneuver 8 or 9 times when suddenly she pinned her ears back flat and started shaking her head. She didn't pull past the end of the lead rope though. I though, "wow, she's really getting mad about this," when she then started kicking up at her belly when someone yelled it was bees. Sure enough, I saw Lily was being swarmed by bees and amazingly she did not panic or blow up or even pull away from Anthony. Anthony tossed the lead rope to me and I caught it and I turned to run with Lily. Unfortunately Lily and I went in opposite directions around a tree. The only way to keep hold of her was to pull her around the tree back into the bees or for me to run into the bees to get around the tree so I chose to let go of the lead rope and hope to catch it on the other side. I didn't catch it and off Lily went down the trail back in the direction of camp.

Anthony jumped on Inca and went in pursuit of Lily. That got the rest of the mules excited as they all wanted to follow Lily and Inca. There was a brief scramble to get mules secured and settled down. Once that was done, I headed down the trail on foot after Anthony. I figured if he got Lily, I would save him having to lead her all the way back. If he did not get her, I'd have to walk out that way anyway. I hadn't gone far when here comes Anthony down the trail with Lily in tow. I sure was relieved to them!! He told me Lily had gotten out to the road and some people hauling a horse trailer saw her and stopped to catch her. By the time Anthony got there, he said there was 4 or 5 trailers backed up down the road as they tried to figure out what to do with Lily. They were of course worried someone had been thrown and hurt. Anthony assured them that was not the case. He told them that a bear had jumped us and Lily had attacked the bear to save our lives and chased it off. Leave it to Anthony to come up with something like that. In any case, Though my brand new lead rope was a bit scuffed up, Lily was none the worse for the wear so I mounted up and we continued on with our ride. The rest of the ride went without incident and we had a great time. From Rice Hollow we rode up to the Tee Pee and then by Whiskey cave. It was the first time in the Shawnee for this group of riders and I still remember how I felt the first time I saw this incredibly beautiful place.