Hoofing and sharing it.
A while back I decided to travel across North Carolina by mule. Trouble was, I didn’t own a saddle bag, horse trailer, or, yeah, it gets worse, a vehicle.
I did own a mule named Woody.
By dint of sewing, borrowing and improvising,… 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.
Tourism Newfoundland Clip
Matt Tucker
Digital Lead
Target Marketing & Communications Inc.
CBC
Our State Woody and Maggie article
Connie Cassidy
2014-07-01 00:35:02
It’s nice to see you posting again. I’ve missed you. I hope your heart is recovering from a truly difficult winter. Thoughts of comfort are drifting your way from Western Washington.
Woody and Maggie (198/9? – 2014)
I’ve written and read a lot of obituaries lately. In the span of eighteen months, my mother, dad, mule, pack pony and family dog have died. None of this comes as a surprise. The young are supposed to scatter the ashes of the old. Then they go on living. Potatoes are banked. Winesaps are pruned. Commutes are commuted. May be some ash slips in to the orchard.
Here’s a look back at two extraordinary equines that took me in to… 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:
Art Harberts, son of William and Lydia (nee Schmidt) Harberts,… Continue reading
Winter 2014 "Hoofing It" Programs
So you left Christmas in the dust. Made some resolutions but back slid moments after 2014 kicked off. Now you’ve got… 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 PBS North Carolina. 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… Continue reading
The Mule at Your Window
Mule Polly has it sussed. While I’m inside sampling some of Newfoundland’s finest home cooked meals, say a skillet of caplin fried in fatback on an oil range, someone will say, “Look! There’s a horse looking in the window.” At which point I look up from my plate of fried fish and say, “yeah, that’s just mule Polly. I think she’d like some molasses bread.”
Chalk it up as a peril of Newfie hospitality.
UNC-TV and Our State "Mule Rider" Program
Note: the following article is about the making of “Mule Rider”, the UNC-TV program that ran the “Our State” program on October 3.
Post Scrip: You can watch the program below
Bayboro, North Carolina. That winter night I parked the wagon by the shrimp boat fleet. Their nets hung like green mist. Mule Polly was grazing next to that giant anchor and I thought of how all day long, she’d marched through the wind and highway trucks and now… Continue reading
