Other Cool Reads
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.
Two Rings
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
“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 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.
Soon after arriving in Austria, the Hungarian Revolution erupted in neighboring… Continue reading
Sign up for the Newsletter
It sure has been great having you along for the Mules West ramble. Though that journey is winding down, it would be great to stay in touch with you. If you’d like to get a heads up from me every now and then, just sign up for my newsletter.
No, I won’t pester you with a bunch of emails.… 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.
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.
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:
Art Harberts, son of William and Lydia (nee Schmidt) Harberts,… Continue reading
Watch "Mule Rider" on UNC-TV
Fancy life in a mule wagon? Last winter, mule Polly and I hit the road with a film crew from UNC-TV. We spent the better part of a week traveling the back roads of eastern North Carolina – from Oriental to Aurora. Through the dormant potato fields, past the moored shrimp boats and giant rusting anchors. We visited with net maker Virgil Potter and guitar picker John Carawan.
What the film crew captured that blustery week recently aired as… Continue reading