Trading Mules

Today would be the last chance I'd get to ride before heading off on my big riding adventure to Caney Mountain Arkansas next week. It was a lovely day today and I knew Anthony was in camp so, I headed over there this morning. Lily was quiet when I got to the barn. She was also FILTHY! I groomed her and loaded her up. She loaded nicely this morning. When I got to camp and unloaded her, it was like she had eaten a psycho pill on the trip over. I was parked in my usual spot but when she got off the trailer she was all snorty and wide eyed and dancing around. Saddling her up was a bit of an event. I was having some serious misgivings about climbing aboard this snorting mass of crazy. Antony was taking out a woman from Michigan that was trying out some mules thinking she might want to buy a mule at some point. He was not ready to go when I finished tacking up so I walked Lily around for a bit. She was all jumpy and snorty at first but after a bit, she started to settle down.

When I was tacking up and putting Lily's new crupper on her, I noticed she had a sore under her tail. I did not have my britchen with me so was a bit worried about that. I did not want to make Lily uncomfortable. I put some bag balm on the area to help keep things from rubbing any more. When I led Lily down towards the office, I ran across JoJo. I mentioned the rub under Lily's tail and next thing I know JoJo is handing me a set of britchen to use. I was so grateful to her and I'm sure Lily was too though Lily might not have realized it.

By the time I climbed up on Lily, she had her head back together and was the good mule I know her to be. As we were heading out of camp we picked up two more riders on horses to make a group of 5. Anthony was riding his mule Mattie Ross and Jan, the woman from Michigan, was riding Evie. We wandered around in the general direction of Initial Tree eventually arriving there where we stopped to have lunch. I had left my sandwich in my truck so Anthony shared half of his sandwich and some chips with me. I've been wanting to try out his mule Mattie Ross so I asked if he would switch mules with me and he said sure. Anthony is the one who started Lily under saddle for me. So we switched for the 2nd part of the ride. I started to caution Anthony about things Lily might or might not do and quickly stop as I see him looking at me like I'm crazy. He then just said, "I'm going to ride her like I stole her". Lily was good for him. I very much enjoyed riding Mattie Ross. She moved out nicely and negotiated the rough trails carefully and smoothly. We had a great ride.