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Shoulda Called a Rain Date

I’m writing you from a wet, dark tent tonight. It’s damp. My feet stink. My sleeping bag is soggy. And it’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have ventured out with the mules today.

The scene inside my tent tonight. It’s rainy. It’s dark. But it’s not foggy. That’s the water inside the lens of my camera. I may have ruined it today. Good thing you can’t smell my feet. Bugger.

I should have called a rain date today. I should… Continue reading

Crossing the Mississippi River With 2 Mules

Mules Brick, Cracker and I have crossed the Mississippi River! No, not on a barge, ferry or flatboat. No, I didn’t ride them down Interstate 24 across the bridge that connects Quincy, Illinois to Missouri. No, I loaded them up on a trailer and hauled them across Big Muddy behind a red Ford pickup.

The bridge that needed crossing. Look closely and you’ll see a tug going underneath. What you don’t see is the west-bound traffic on Interstate 24. Just… Continue reading

Mule Ramble Week 9 in Photos

Call this the Big City week. The mules spent the past 4 days resting up on the outskirts of Quincy, Illinois. Thanks Todd and Julie Curry for giving the mules and me a place to catch our breathes! I thought you’d enjoy a few photos of my time in Gem City.

Quincy, Illinois. Population +-40,000. Plus this week, 2 transient mules and a dude from North Carolina. In the background, the Bayview Bridge. It is one of 2 bridges that… Continue reading

Two Rings

Bernie Harberts, julia carpenter, mule, marriage, married, getting married, engagement

A bit of grinder work

This Sunday I pried 2 wire clips off one of the t-posts that hold up the barbed wire in the mule pasture. I bent the clips in to ring shapes on the box blade. Cut off the excess wire with an angle grinder . Slipped the larger of the two rings on my finger. Just to test. Then I made a smaller ring.
Julia and I walked up to the orchard and laid down in… Continue reading

Living Lean and Feeling Bionic

Bernie Harberts, mule, mule polly, lost sea expedition, adventure, lost sea expedition, amazon prime

Mule ramblin’ digs: Julia and the mules prepare to bunk down for the night on last fall’s mule ramble. We spent six weeks traveling from our farm in western NC to Virginia and back. (Iron Mountain Trail, Damascus, VA)

“There’s a certain sharpness that comes from not being comfortable all the time.”
That’s Julia writing about our month and a half long mule ramble we took last fall. We traveled with little more than a tent, 2 jugs of water… Continue reading

Mule Polly and I go to the Dentist

Mule Polly and I both went to the dentist this week. Separately.
We took different approaches to visiting the tooth doc. I brushed and flossed my teeth bleed ’til they damn near bled. Polly just got on the horse trailer.
We drove her over to Dr Hay at Tryon Equine Associates in Tryon.

I’ve been going to the dentist since the tooth fairy shook down my parents for a dollar. This was Polly’s first visit.
That’s the equivalent of a… Continue reading

Ursula Daniel Obituary (1935 – 2018)

Ursula Daniel
(1935 – 2019)

Ursula Daniel, ursula blatter

Ursula Daniel in 2015 when she returned to Switzerland, home of her birth (Elfenau Park photo, Bern Switzerland)

Ursula Daniel died December 9, 2018 in Bern, Switzerland.
Ursula was born in Bern, Switzerland in 1935 to Fritz and Heidi (née Egger) Blatter. She studied and worked as an actress until she left Switzerland for an acting job in Vienna in 1956.

Ursula Daniel, ursula blatter

Ursula: stage actress

Soon after arriving in Austria, the Hungarian Revolution erupted in neighboring… Continue reading

The Drover's Slides

January 5 was my birthday and it got me looking back through my old slides. Funny how life changes. Thirteen years ago I was living in New Zealand chasing cows with Allan Crawford. These days I live on my farm in western North Carolina. I chase mules instead of cows. When I run to town, it’s for diesel, memory cards and wifi, not shark oil, scones and slide film.

allan crawford new zealand

Allan Crawford: Kiwi stockman, drover and, for a spell, my boss… Continue reading

Finally a Mailbox

The past fifteen years I’ve gotten mail everywhere but in my own mailbox. Much of it has to do with my traveling ways. It’s hard to blame the post man for not filling your letter box if you’re never around – and don’t own a mailbox.

It’s something I finally got around to correcting.

descriptor of shot

Home, sweet, barely visible home. It’s a fifteen minute round trip walk from my house to the new mail box. Look closely and you can see… Continue reading

Art Harberts 1926 to 2014

Sad news. My dad, Arthur Stanley Harberts, died this week. He was 87. The obituary I wrote for my best friend, Dust Bowler, husband and dad reads as such:

My dad Art Harberts on his 87th birthday. He never was much of a cake man so I just put the candles on a bottle of his favorite whiskey, Jack Daniel’s Black Label. He died at home surrounded by his family.

Art Harberts, son of William and Lydia (nee Schmidt) Harberts,… Continue reading

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