New Kids on the Block

Traveling around the country, first in the Airstream and later with the rooftop tent on top of the Subaru wagon, we found ourselves falling in love with mules. There’s just something about them, mysterious, ancient, inscrutable, with pain and wanting at the same time. They are stoic, loyal, durable and constant.

We had ridden them in the canyons, where their wide-set eyes make it possible for them to see where their hind hooves land, as they easily maneuver down narrow trails, up revines, over rocks or across crevaces.

We’d been to the Mule Day events, the rodeos and auctions, where prize mules go for over thirty thousand dollars. And it’s no wonder. On top of all their other attributes, they live into their forties. The one price they pay for this is that they are not fertile, and so their legacy is a single, long lifetime of noble service.

George Washington was the first to begin breeding mules in the United States. The mule being a product of a donkey and a horse, he introduced the Mammoth Mule, a cross between a large Jack donkey and a horse. The U.S. Army still uses this particular cross today.

Of particular interest is that the mule exhibits something called “hybrid vigor,” a phenomenon in which the offspring inherit qualities superior to either parent. Hence mules are smarter, more sturdy, and live longer than either of their equine cousins.

The “stubborn as a mule” epithet is unfairly associated with the breed. It is a misreading really. For the mule takes time to assess a situation before engaging in it the first time. Hence the old saying, “if you think mules are stubborn, you’ve just been outsmarted by a mule!”

It finally dawned on us that instead of traveling out west to see the mules, we could have them right here on the farm at home, and so approximately a year ago Merle and Raven arrived.

More news to come….