Mules West

Broken Bow 4-H

11 years ago, almost to the day, I passed through Broken Bow with mule Polly the our “Lost Sea Expedition” voyage. Today, I rode in through the front gates and received the same kind of generous welcome I received over a decade ago.

Cracker Scratcher: the mules’ ears were an immediate draw (Custer County Fairgrounds, Broken Bow, Nebraska)

The fairground was packed with trailers, horses, parents and kids. All setting up for this coming week’s 4-H show. Despite… Continue reading

Sunday Sleep Medicine

Sleepy the Cement Indian. Spotted outside a school on the outskirts of Meredosia, IL, where I crossed the Illinois River with the mules. This heavy eye lid look is what happens when you don’t get enough sleep. Or maybe it’s just the high school art department’s paint job…

Howdy Pilgrim. Feeling sorta sleepy this Sunday morning? Don’t sweat it.

Here’s some ancient Indian advice. Crawl back in to your tent bed and get some more nods. That’s what I… Continue reading

Mason City, Nebraska

A highway crew, a bible rodeo camp, an inventor and a Nebraska city named after a jar. Here’s the day in photos.

Tom Cooper: inventor, fabricator and human manure composter. Here, aboard the bus he lives in. (Mason City, NE)

Okay, Mason City has nothing to do with canning but that’s where we ended up tonight (July 27). I rode the mules out Trent and Kelli Loos’s driveway this morning at 6a and made Mason City, 18 miles away, just… Continue reading

Wake me to Say Good Bye

“Come see what Landri wrote you on the whiteboard,” Trent Loos said. Landri is Trent and Kelli Loos’s youngest daughter.

Landri

The Loos family had put the mules and me up and now it was time to move on. I walked in to the kitchen and read my whiteboard farewell.

“Please wake me…..” (Hazard, NE)

Please wake me

Out here traveling across Nebraska with my mules, hellos come in the evening. Goodbyes come in the dark. That’s because the mules… Continue reading

Walking to Hazard With Mules: Trent Loos and I Talk Mule Rambling on “Rural Route”

Trent Loos lives the life he broadcasts: here releasing semen on his breeding boar “The Rookie”

Trent Loos: sixth generation Nebraska rancher, friend and broad caster. This week I spent a few nights with the Loos family catching up on times gone by.

The morning after my arrival, we talked mules, floods and Quincy, Illinois on his “Rural Route” program. Click on the audio player below to listen in to 2 friends catching up.

“Rural Route”: from Bernie’s house to… Continue reading

Bison Dawn

Bison dawn

Mules Brick, Cracker and I are entering the land of the bison. Outside Hordville, Nebraska, we rode past our first herd. They were the farmed, not wild, kind. The bison above wasn’t too wild either. It’s a bronze cast at the Lee G Simmons Conservation Park and Wildlife Safari where the mules and took a day off.

I

Victory in a Can

I was agitated because I needed to ride my mules across the bridge leading from Iowa to Nebraska. It was hella narrow. He pulled up and asked, “do you drink beer?” and handed me a cold Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Do you drink beer?

“Hell yeah!” I said and tucked the beer away in my pommel bag. He gave me the thumbs-up and I rode toward the bridge that was giving me the yips. I felt calmer knowing there was a… Continue reading

Miles or Steps? Measure of a Journey.

Folks often ask me, “how many miles can you and the mules travel in a day?”.

I tell them 25 and they’re not impressed.

Let the day – and miles – begin. Cracker and I get ready to head up the road with Brick. We travel 15 to 25 miles per day with 20 miles being an average day’s run. I walk a lot to save wear and tear on the mules’ backs. (outside South Gifford, MO)

25 miles. Big… Continue reading

Crop Duster Dusting

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.

The crop duster: trailing behind it, a plume of insecticide, fungicide or pesticide.

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

Hoof Boot Friday

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.

My hoof boot collection. Brick wears the 4 boots on the left. Cracker’s are the 4 boots in the middle. The 2 on the right are spares. The orange pieces on the far right are replacement soles.… Continue reading
Current Ramble
Other Cool Reads
Categories
Archives
Follow Bernie!