Bawanna's Mule Story

Bookie, I dunno how you do it. So many mule stories... I don't think I've ever even met a mule face-to-face.
 
philllll said:
Bookie, I dunno how you do it. So many mule stories... I don't think I've ever even met a mule face-to-face.
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Your missing one of the important and enjoyable things in life philllll. Don't think Florida is the mule capital of the world but you ought to be able to find one someplace you can get to know.

You already got the right idea, face to face is always the best way to meet one. The other end can be a mighty iffy proposition, surely don't want to sneak up on one, that's for sure.

And I agree Bookie is indeed the mule story teller of the world.
 
Bawanna said:
You already got the right idea, face to face is always the best way to meet one. The other end can be a mighty iffy proposition, surely don't want to sneak up on one, that's for sure.
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This reminded me of a funny saying.

So hungry I could eat the north end of a south-bound skunk!

Country folk have the best expressions.
 
You get hungry enough, that ain't an expression, it's the plumb goodness truth. I been there, fortunate I couldn't find a southbound skunk.
 
One of our neighbors kept a couple mules in the field next to our backyard. We had our own names for the mules. The smaller one was a female we called "Muley". The large reddish one we called "Red". Muley was a sweetheart, while Red was a bit loco. We would occasionally take our young daughter to the fence with some offerings for the mules, usually handfuls of grass, or some carrots or apples. Of course, Red would try to hog whatever we brought.

At the time, my wife was still figuring out how to cook certain things, and she didn't like it if I watched while she was cooking and made suggestions about how she could do it better. Go figure. She had a particularly hard time making good pancakes. We had a running joke about how her pancakes were like the ones made by Lisa on the TV show "Green Acres". Instead of pancakes, I called them "Lisa cakes".

One morning, the Lisa cakes were so bad that I half-jokingly suggested we feed them to Muley and Red. Surprisingly, my wife agreed. We trudged over to the fence carrying a stack of Lisa cakes, and the mules came over to meet us. Of course, Red barged his way to the front of the line, and greedily chewed up the first Lisa cake. Suddenly, he spat it all out, and scraped his tongue against his teeth to get rid of the taste. Muley saw this happen, and wouldn't even try one. We had a good laugh, and pitched the Lisa cakes into the garbage can.

[This episode convinced my wife to allow me to watch her make pancakes and give suggestions. I found that she used too low a heat, so the pancakes spent too much time cooking, with repeating turnings until they were brown enough. Worse yet, whenever the pancakes were turned, she would press down with the turner, as if she was searing a steak... These days, I'm happy to report that she proudly makes fluffy pancakes.]

Muley and Red were not used for any farming tasks. Apart from a certain two weeks each year, they did no work at all. Those two weeks coincided with Elk hunting season. Each year, they were coaxed, bribed, or forced up a ramp into the back of a pickup truck that had a box-like "stable" built on it. It was quite a project getting Red up there. Afterward, we would hear loud banging as the confined Red kicked the plywood walls, which had plenty of patches. Two weeks later, the truck returned, and the mules were led back to the field where they relaxed for another 50 weeks.

Occasionally one of the mules, we never did figure out which one, would let out a loud, sustained, high-pitched bellow. One summer morning, we were in my daughter's bedroom and she was standing in her crib. The window was wide open, and suddenly the mule bellowed. My daughter's eyes got real wide, and she said, "I heard an elephant!"
 
A feller named Bawanna, up Worshington state ways, owned a mule which he used fer work all week. But bein' a church-going man, he let ol' Pugs rest on Sunday.

Now, one Sunday, Bawanna had to go to a funeral. An odd day for such a service, but it was deemed necessary, so he sent his oldest son to saddle up Pugsy. "Since when do I have to work on Sunday?" asked the mule. The boy dropped the saddle and run to the house. "Dad, yer mule talked!" he shouted. "Can't you even throw a saddle ol' Pugs, you lazy brat?" asked Bawanna with a frown. "But Dad, Pugsy don't wanna work on Sunday," the boy protested.

Bawanna sent the boy to his room fer talkin' crazy like and went out to saddle the mule. "Move over, Pugs" he said tryin' to grab the cinch from under the mule's belly. "So where's my supper?" asked Pugs. Bawanna, definitely spooked, dropped that ol' saddle inna same spot as'is boy and run out the barn, follied by the dog. "Ain't never heard no mule talk before!" he gasped; out of breath from not usin'is chair. "Me neither!" exclaimed the dog.

With that, poor ol' Bawanna bolted fer the house and slammed the door. "Sweetie, the mule talked!" he told his wife. "Now do tell, Mr. Hopke and where's yer chair?" said his wife with a look of disbelievement on her face. "And when I exclaimed: 'I ain't never heard no mule talk before', the dog said: 'Me neither!" "That's crazy, Joe. You hittin' the sauce again?" said his wife.

"What's so crazy about that?" asked the cat. "Ain't you ever heard of a talking mule?"
 
Steve, Very good. That story is memories for me and brought a smile to my face. We, too, had a "Red" once upon a time and he must have been a brother in hunger. Thanks again.
 
Red must have been another popular mule name, my granddad had a Red too. I don't recollect much about him other than the name.

He raced them little carts where your right up behind the horse when I was a yonker, did pretty good at it too. One of my aunts a few years back sent me a whole shoe box full of ribbons and stuff that he won.

Nothing to do with mules but I remember enjoying watching him. Some pretty awful wrecks too, he wasn't never in any of them fortunately, least ways that I ever heard about.
 
That was great Bookie lol, I busted out laughing while reading and the wife just sitting there looking at me like im nuts lol.
 
Wife looking at you like your nuts? That there would be what we call a clue my very good friend.

I have more than my wife look at me like I'm nuts sometimes, I try not to let it get me down ya know. Stick with what your good at my daddy always said. He was nuts too.
 
Bawanna said:
Wife looking at you like your nuts? That there would be what we call a clue my very good friend.

I have more than my wife look at me like I'm nuts sometimes, I try not to let it get me down ya know. Stick with what your good at my daddy always said. He was nuts too.
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Wise words....very wise.
 
thank you to all who have posted these stories - I have really enjoyed reading all these. I have to go back through make sure I have read them all - this may be an odd question but when horse's were mentioned I was thinking -- Isn't a mule a cross between donkey and horse or do I have that backwards?
 
You get a mule when a male donkey breeds a mare horse. Once in a while people will breed a female donkey with a horse. Then you get what's called a hinny. They look different than a mule. More like a horse. The critter's mother determines just how big the offspring will get. Mules are sterile and so can't have offspring. But many mules are cut so they don't pay attention to horses or donkeys when they are in heat, and then become "Johns" instead of "Jacks". There are rare cases where some lucky owners actually get a female mule! Female mules can have off spring which is even rarer, but getting one with foal is really difficult.
 
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I sent one of my rifles to Vienna. Werner sent this photo of how he must take it to the shooting range.
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Ha!!! Do you have to check reciprocity laws in neighboring states when you shoot it:D
 
That's a good one, they don't call em long rifles for nuthing I guess.
 
Many years ago, back when a friend of mine was a guide and outfitter with a hound pack, we would go bear hunting down in the Sacramento mountains in SE New Mexico. We'd often run into this old texan named Bill who came up for the bear hunt. He had this amazing rig - a big 4-wheel drive diesel pickup, with a 250 gallon diesel tank behind the cab, so he could drive up to New Mexico, hunt for a week, and drive back, without every needing to fill up (which was good, because there wasn't any place to fill up that didn't involve a long drive). The rest of the bed had this huge custom-built box, that had 6 dog cages on each side (three on top, three on the bottom) overhanging both sides of the bed where he kept his hounds, and then a big box in the middle for his two mules. But his were these little shetland mules - I think they were a cross between a donkey and a shetland pony? He was a big guy, and looked pretty funny on top of one of these little mules. But they were really stong, and didn't seem to have any problem carrying him. And when the hounds followed a trail through the thick oak brush, he could dismount and crawl though the tunnels in the oak brush, and the mule would just follow him through until he could get clear and re-mount. He had a trailer hitch mounted on the front of the truck, with a little platform that hooked into it, so he could have his strike dog riding out in front, just above the forest roads, to better pick up a whiff of bear scent. I hunted with him a few times, and he'd drive that big rig into places I wouldn't have even considered. He had a full-length bumper-to-bumper steel skid plate welded onto the bottom, so when he got to one of his favorite forest roads that the forest service had blocked off with a big dirt berm, he'd just gun the truck up the side of the berm until the front wheels dropped over the top, and then skid it on over on the skid plates and keep going. The first time he did that, I looked at him and asked him "Bill, aren't you worried about getting stuck sometime?". He just looked at me distainfully and said "Son, I've got a chain saw and a 20,000 pound winch. If I have to, I'll make a road". He was a real story-teller and told some amazing tales, some of which may have even contained a bit of truth :D
 
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