The yellow plane roared out of the sunset over my tent. A crop duster applying chemicals to the soybean field next to where I was camped with my mules.

Back and forth the plane swooped over the bean field.

I wondered about the mid-West breast cancer rate. I wondered about all those farmers I’d met with second wives. Over and over they’d told me, “my first wife… Continue reading →

You may not know this but today is Hoof Boot Friday. Because I say it is. In honor of this day I’m doing routine maintenance on my hoof boots. The mules have traveled 1,200 miles in them. They need a bit of love.

Greetings from Hordville, Nebraska. The mules and I arrived here this morning (July 17, 2019) and set up a welcome camp under the linden tree by the rail road tracks. A wonderful place to duck the heat before things heated up this afternoon.

Temperatures have been in the 90s all this week with higher temps forecast. This limits the amount of time the mules… Continue reading →

Catfish hung on stop signs. Catfish flung on the shoulder. A dead chub on the highway. Lately mules Brick and Cracker and I have come across dead fish where you wouldn’t expect them – along the side of the road. I put them in to a post card-like arrangement I though you’d enjoy.

Right now… Continue reading →

Good Sunday morning to you friend. Daytime temps here in western Nebraska have been in the mid-90s so we start early. I try to be on the road with the mules before the sun comes up. I hope your Sunday’s going well and you got done in the morning cool whatever it is you had planned.

This morning the mules and I are east of Ashland, Nebraska. We’re heading toward Valparaiso.

A bag of corn, a bucket of water and a salt block. Oh, and a herd of elk. The mules are chillin’ on their day off. We’re guests of the Lee G Simmons Conservation Park and Wildlife Safari.

The Lee G Simmons Conservation Park and Wildlife Safari features… Continue reading →

The mules and I have arrived in Nebraska!

We started the day outside Tabor, Iowa and worked our way through the rolling Iowa country over to the Missouri River. There we got a first hand look at the after-effects of the flooding that has plagued the mid-West all spring and in to summer.

Right now I’m settling the mules in… Continue reading →

A man and his mules journey across America

By Ethan Colbert / Photo Katelyn Metzger / Jun. 13, 2019

(NOTE: The following is a re-publishing of an article that originally ran in the Herald-Whig (Quincy, Illionois) on June 13, 2019 / Bernie Harberts)

I was grumpy when I rode in to New Boston because I’d taken a wrong turn with my mules and I wasn’t where I wanted to be. I was afoot and the extra 8 miles I’d walked in the heat put me in a crappy mood.

I plopped down across from the town bar and ate my sardine lunch in the shade of a tree.

A truck pulled up and… Continue reading →

They lumber heavy as tanks across the road in front of my mules: turtles. Snapping turtles, box turtles and sliders. This week, Cracker and Brick took a moment to admire a slider as it made its was leisurely across the road.

My blood pressure’s already pretty low but I felt it drop a few more points. Maybe I’ll look at… Continue reading →