Category: Critters & Kids

Over the years, we have adopted many farm cats from several different sources. In spite of providing prime feline habitat, including a barn loft full of fresh straw bales, these cats never stuck around. That is, until Marmalade.

I typically enjoy animals, but I appreciate them even more so when they serve a higher purpose by, say, hunting varmints. Hunting unfortunately isn’t a skillset that seems to come naturally to our orange tomcat. A year into his tenure, we had yet to observe him attempt to catch something – anything – but Marmalade finally got his big break after a harsh, late spring blizzard. The kids noticed a weak, disoriented bird struggling in the unexpected snow. Even Marmalade picked up on the fairly obvious cues this ailing little bird was throwing and he was ready to pounce. Blame it on bad timing or poor aim, but somehow, he missed the bird and instead awkwardly fell off the deck and into a deep pile of wet snow. He did not land on his feet and maybe even used up one of his nine lives during the ordeal. The bird, on the other hand, regained its strength and fluttered away, perhaps to live a long and happy life.

Marmalade has also proven to be unlucky in love. Our resident mother cat, creatively named Marmalade’s Girlfriend, has birthed a few litters of kittens since her arrival two years ago. Even though Marmalade has made numerous romantic advances toward her – hence her name – her offspring resemble a different, moody tomcat, leaving little doubt as to who the sire is and sparking many discussions among the children. While their relationship is complicated, Marmalade remains close with Marmalade’s Girlfriend, who is a skilled hunter, adept at bringing home the bacon for her family, and maybe a morsel for Marmalade too.

My relationship with the lazy feline is complicated in its own rite. A memorable low point came when I was hauling groceries in after a long day away from home. There was Marmalade, casually strolling around the corner of my kitchen, meowing an easy-going greeting to me. Did I mention he is NOT a house cat? How did he gain entry? How long had he been sauntering around, enjoying the comforts of my home? His stint as a house cat was abruptly cut short, and hasn’t been repeated again.

While hunting and romance may not be his forte, Marmalade is great at a few things. He is an expert at marking his territory. There isn’t a vehicle, flower pot, or other random object that doesn’t boast the telltale sign that this is Marmalade’s turf. He is also great at being everywhere, and is forever trotting down the lane, dutifully. When we run to the shop a half mile away, Marmalade is already there. When the kids are waiting to get on the school bus, he’s right there waiting too. Whether we are moving around from the barn to the back pasture or the corral, he beats us to these locations and welcomes us with a cool appraisal as if to say, “I wondered when you’d finally arrive.”

Marmalade is affectionate, he’s always grateful for a scratch behind the ears and is a regular topic of family conversation. We can’t help but cheer him on and celebrate his victories, even if they are few and far between. If a cat can be an underdog, then he is exactly that – Marmalade is our underdog.

Most summers we try to take a short trip somewhere as a family, or at the very least have an epic staycation where we set up the tent and camp out on the prairie. This year, for whatever reason, one week melted into another and before we knew it, school started and the five of us hadn’t travelled anywhere together. Over Thanksgiving, we knew it was now or never, and we embarked on our family summer vacation.

We already knew it was a little peculiar to take a “summer” holiday in October, but the weirdness was only compounded when it started to snow for almost the entire duration of our trip. While the snow left me checking the road reports and dutifully marking several outdoor activities off my carefully planned itinerary, the kids were completely unfazed as they twirled around, trying to catch the fat flakes of snow on their tongues. (Hey, this wasn’t my first family vacation rodeo, I was prepared with winter coats and toques).

One of the highlights of our trip was a visit to a zoo. The timing really couldn’t have been better, as the heavy snow not only made the zoo animals perky and engaging, it kept scores of potential visitors away.  As a rule, farmers of all ages don’t like crowds, so a nearly empty zoo that was ours to explore was perfect! We walked and discovered and walked and ate snacks, and when that was done, we walked some more. We watched the penguins munch on fish and revel in the snow and we saw the majestic tigers and snow leopards gracefully meander through their spaces. The cougars and the bears were a hit, and I couldn’t help but laugh as we viewed the flamingoes chilling out (literally) in the fresh snow alongside the mallard ducks that came and went.

My husband and I would point out interesting things here and there to the kids but they made observations of their own. As farm kids, they have a pretty good idea of how the Animal Kingdom works from a biological standpoint, and they had lots of good questions. They noted the giraffes eating hay from their elevated hay bags and the tiny Asian pigs obtain water from a spigot. The kids noticed several enclosures that featured stock water bowls, excitedly saying “they have the same waterbowls as we do!” We walked near an elaborate set of corrals and chutes set up for handling larger animals. I suspect the zoo was trying to conceal this infrastructure, or at the very least not draw attention to it, but there our kids were, peering through the bushes, commenting on the height and function of the animal handling system. The omnipresent electric fencing throughout the zoo also caught their attention. Electric fence wires, insulators, and the fencers themselves were discussed at length and one pointed out that a particular fencer wasn’t holding a charge. I guess he’s spent a few days checking fencers back at our ranch, this wasn’t his first rodeo, either.

The entire trip was good. We stayed in hotels, enjoyed water sliding, ate lots of good food, visited with friends and family, and there was plenty of hot coffee consumed by mom and dad. And, although we already knew this, we were reminded that you can take the kids off the farm, but you can’t take the farm out of the kids.

Right or wrong, one of the communication tools I seem to use extensively in motherhood is hollering. It’s not usually the first technique I resort to using, but after trying methods such as having a quiet and rational discussion about a situation, I do find yelling to yield at least moderately effective results in my offspring. And if my hollering is not completely effective, at the very least it does allow me to let off some steam which is therapeutic in itself.

I know I’m not the first mom to yell at her children, however I feel that raising farm kids does cause me to holler things that my suburban mommy counterparts never would. Sometimes in the heat of the moment when I hear myself yell out loud, I have to just step back and contemplate how different it is to raise a ranch kid. The very things I holler at my children remind me that we are so very fortunate to raise our rural kids. I think…

“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times, stay out of the afterbirth!” At this time of year, cows are busy birthing baby calves around our ranch, and with every calf comes a placenta that is often left scattered throughout the corrals. The slimy, gooey, gelatinous mass that is the afterbirth is a pretty strong magnet for inquisitive farm kids. It begs to be poked with a stick, or tapped with the toe of a rubber boot, or stuck on the end of a pitchfork to chase your sibling around with. In the continuum of gross things that ranch kids love to play with, afterbirth is boss.

“If you heel me one more time as I walk across the yard, so help me….!” I not only have the occasion to yell this out to my kids, I can honestly say I complain about this to my Other Half as well. I’m pleased that members of my family seem so adept at roping, but I would prefer if they use their clever skills on livestock and leave me out of their game. There has not been a single incident where roping me by my feet unexpectedly has improved my mood or the resulting mood of those around me. Just stop.

“If you stick that [insert toy/bracelet/ball/bicycle] down that [gopher/badger] hole, I am NOT going in after it!”  While I sincerely love our homestead, it is fraught with many holes, some of them quite large, and most of them all within a short distance of our house, garden, and play area. In the past our gophers not only added grey hairs to my head but I’m sure they shaved precious days off my life, and I’ll be darned if I’m going to spend any time peering down a hole wondering where that Hot Wheels car went. And I’m definitely not going to be sticking my arm down one of the many badger holes dotting our landscape to retrieve a beloved trinket. It’s gone. The end.

“Stop touching that dead [insert gopher/bird/mouse/frog]! Leave it alone!” While we are lucky to raise our children with an appreciation for life cycles and the natural world, I don’t exactly want them to touch every random dead critter they encounter. I certainly don’t make it a habit to have dead wildlife accessible to my children, but farm kids are attracted to gross things like, well, a fly to roadkill. If they spy something icky, they’re going to check it out. And if they go to check it out, they will poke it with a stick.

Just like all moms around the world, my curious kids keep pushing their boundaries and I keep nudging them back. It’s all a part of a healthy childhood, but when the playground is a farmyard, the limitations that are explored are just a little different than those of the average Canadian kid. As long as my little ranchers keep pushing the envelope, I’m probably going to keep yelling. Hopefully they learn a little something along the way.

There are many milestones children reach as they grow. The first tooth, first steps, first words, all endearing little goals that babies achieve at their own pace, often with a crowd of supporters cheering them on. As kids get older, it’s a first sleepover, a first day of school, a first goal scored and other celebratory milestones that memories are made of.

Not all common milestones are cause for celebration, however, such as that of the first self-administered haircut. Now, I try not to compare my dear offspring to one another. For the most part, they have achieved milestones at their own speed which is wonderful. I will note, however, that our older twin boys never did reach the milestone of cutting their own hair. They’ve enjoyed cutting and crafting and using scissors in regular supervised activities, however they have never turned their efforts towards themselves (or each other). So imagine my surprise when Little Sister grew very quiet one morning and instead of finding her, I discovered a trail of golden curls scattered throughout the house with a very scared looking girl at its end. “Sorry,” she whispered, barely audible.

It could have been much worse. What looked like an awful lot of hair didn’t really amount to much in the end. She took a little off the front, near her bangs, and added some creative layers at the very back of her head which are now developing into cowlicks that more or less can be tamed into a ponytail.

I certainly did a more thorough hack job on myself when I was her age and for a good while I was sporting what people consider now to be a trendy pixie cut. Back then, there was definitely nothing trendy about my coif, and I mostly just looked like a little boy with an obligatory pink barrette affixed to whatever hair I had remaining. Not satisfied with cutting my own hair, I cut my teddy bear’s fur too. Mid-cut, I realized this was a pretty poor decision and I was likely to get into trouble, so I did whatever any enterprising kid would do – I hid it under the couch cushion. All was well until my mother made this grisly-and-confusing discovery, at which point I had some explaining to do.

Our own sweet flaxen-haired little Edward Scissorhands also does not limit herself to just cutting her own hair. She has been hard at work cutting other things as she deems necessary. Feeling warm? That can easily be remedied by cutting numerous small holes in the front of a perfectly lovely shirt. Do you hate it when your washable marker doesn’t colour quite right? Why don’t you take matters into your own hands and trim it to a finer point with your brother’s little green scissors? Feeling snacky? Grab yourself a piece of bread and don’t worry about opening the bag, just cut the top right off of it, as close to the loaf as possible. It seems there is no problem in her life that can be solved with scissors.

Of course, one could argue that perhaps more careful supervision and removal of scissors may actually prevent her snipping stunts. That may be true, but I will point out that she has accomplished most of these tasks with child-friendly scissors that I can barely cut paper with.

Some kids collect rocks and other kids entertain themselves with paper. But when the going gets tough, our tough little gal goes straight for the scissors.

We had a pretty big milestone last week for our family, and as with most momentous occasions it was bittersweet. The big yellow bus drove into our yard for the first time and our twin boys hopped on to head into their first day of Kindergarten. It was inevitable. Our kids couldn’t stay babies forever and I wasn’t about to try my hand at home-schooling just to ease my apprehension. But it still smarted a bit.

Earlier this summer, I was excited about the impending first day of school. I know the boys will learn new things and meet new friends. Now they will have other adults whom they can plie with questions like “what is on the other side of space?” and “what is more important – the sun or the clouds?” As twins, they will go together and like always, I know that they will look out for each other. It wouldn’t be all bad.

As the summer wore on though, I couldn’t help but realize things will never quite be the same and the boys felt it too. One of the boys asked me to print a picture of his sister so he could pack it with him so he wouldn’t forget what she looked like. The other little boy wistfully wondered how many loads of bales we would haul in without his help. Secretly my Other Half and I wondered the same. And our youngest (the girl with an apparently forgettable face) asked where her “pack pack” and lunch kit were, declaring that she would need them because she’ll be riding the school bus too. Her earnest statements made me think I wouldn’t be the only gal to shed a tear as the bus pulled out of the yard.

The boys boarded the bus without even a backward glance, so quick in fact, I couldn’t snap the classic picture of them and their bus driver. The day seemed to crawl by but they finally arrived back home full of news and information and packing almost-full lunch kits. I asked them why they didn’t eat more and they simultaneously said they were “too busy” and there was “no time,” but I think it was because they were so excited. They were a bit fuzzy on the details as to who was on their bus or who was in their classroom, but they retained a surprising number of facts regarding the school milk program. My young rock collector fished some rocks out of his pocket that he picked up from this new previously-unexplored playground territory. My other son, an unapologetic over-sharer, informed me that he told the bus driver “a lot of stories. A lot!” he added for emphasis. No doubt they will share their fair share of ranch stories with any willing or even unwilling ear, regardless of how good or bad they might be.

My earlier twinges of doubt didn’t cloud the fact that there were and will be many fun times during school. Our children are sure to have a long future of track and field days, Christmas concerts, field trips, and endless games of knuckles sprinkled throughout their homework, exams and bus rides. And like it or not, Little Sister will enjoy the next two years of having unfettered access to her brothers’ farm toys and corral set-ups while they are at school.

With backpacks full of carefully labelled school supplies and heads full of curious questions, it really wasn’t a matter of whether or not our boys were ready for Kindergarten… the question was, was I?

There are few programs available for kids to participate in today that are greater than that of 4-H. I’m between seasons, if you will, with 4-H at the moment. It’s been a couple decades since I’ve participated as a youngster myself and our own children are a bit too young to join just yet, so at this point I’m more of an occasional volunteer and an interested observer of the numerous and diverse projects that are out there. It was some recent occasional volunteering that got me thinking about 4-H and the values that it continues to instill in youth today.

As a kid, I participated in a sewing project for a few years and later on a craft project. Now as an adult, I recognize that I’m not exactly going to craft my way out of a drought, or sew myself a mortgage payment, but participating in these projects was less about the tangible outcomes and more about the intangibles. I didn’t notice it at the time, but partaking in 4-H was training me to learn how to work with others, meet new people, and take on different challenges. I learned the proper way to conduct meetings, I did some public speaking, and of course I photographed my projects with my mom and dad’s Polaroid camera, documenting them in my record book. I even ended up on a curling team where we somehow won a medal in spite of my participation. I had fun and learned fresh skills and I didn’t even realize it.

I recently had the opportunity to assist with a marketing judging exercise for several groups of youngsters at the regional 4-H show. I really didn’t know what I signed up for when I said I would help, but the faithful adage “learn to do by doing” worked for this grown-up and I figured it out as I went. Marketing is a new judging category and it is a useful skill for young members to develop in today’s savvy world. There were kids of all ages who were eager to learn about what makes a good display advertisement, how and why we should advertise and the role that marketing can play in their own beef projects.

I started out each discussion asking the members to think about the types of advertising and marketing they experienced in their daily lives, partially to help guide the discussion, but maybe more because I’m snoopy and curious about the daily life of a 4-H pre-teen. I got answers like “I see lots of ads for hay” and “I’m phoning people who may be interested in buying my steer” and quickly realized these kids are probably well on their way to teaching me about the finer points of marketing.

The kids who participated were polite, they were articulate, and they were respectful. They asked thoughtful questions, made valid points and listened closely. The most commotion I encountered was having to break up some adolescents who had spontaneously formed a group and were quietly discussing moisture and the price of hay. I hated to interrupt them (I was trying to eavesdrop and learn a thing or two!) but alas we had to stay on time.

The experience left me feeling optimistic and thinking that there is a lot of potential in the youth of Saskatchewan. There are many kids out there with a firm grasp of reality and a lot of common sense, and I have no doubt that they will be excellent leaders in our communities. If our future lies in the hands of teenagers who are matter-of-factly discussing local forage conditions, I am perfectly good with that.

If you aren’t involved in 4-H, think about becoming involved. If you’re a kid, you can join a local club and if you’re an adult, maybe you would like to be an audience member at the next Achievement Day or are even interested in volunteering. It will be good for your head, your hands, your health and especially your heart.

The return of the Canada goose is the quintessential sign and sound of spring as they honk their way home for the warmer weather. Canada geese are large and somewhat brash, they attract attention in parks and cities, they have parody social media accounts (i.e. @ReginaGoose on Twitter) and the Canada goose has even been blamed for air plane crashes. It seems they are always in the news, including a recent account of the ‘Costco goose’ who chose to get cozy near a Regina Costco store. Ironic, a goose setting up camp just meters away from a store that sells down-filled duvets and vests from their feathered brethren.

Here at the Lonesome Dove Ranch, we have our own goose stories. While I can’t say for sure that it’s the same pair, there is a pair of geese that migrates to our yard every spring, and persistently proceeds to nest. At best, they have entertained us with many a spring time adventure, and at worst, their nesting has been spectacularly unsuccessful.

Canada geese enjoy nesting in bales, and fortunately for these fine birds, we have a lot of different options for them to choose. It would be so nice if they would choose wisely for once. The first year the geese descended, they circled around, honked, and settled on the top bale of a straw stack that was two bales high. Out of all the bales in all the land, they chose the most precarious bale on which to nest. We gave them a wide berth, leaving the stack alone. We had really only built that particular stack in that spot to offer a bit of windbreak for our house so it was no hardship to leave the bales alone and we wished them well. As the story goes, the wind can blow fiercely at times, especially in our yard, and one day I arrived home to find the geese waddling around, confused, staring at the bale which had once housed their family but now was toppled over on the ground, having blown over in the wind. Their luck, it seemed, was bad.

Dejected and nestless, the pair of geese turned their attention to the heifers which were sharing their same home base. There was much posturing, pestering and territory-marking between the geese and the heifers who were pretty curious about their new playmates. After lunch one day, I was watching the bizarre and humorous dance between the birds and the cattle. The geese would hiss and flap their wings when the heifers would get too close, and the heifers would playfully trot off. Sniff (cows), hiss (geese), honk (geese), runaway (cows), repeat.

While watching, I noticed a nearby heifer who had laid down in a small hole, and was unable to get up. While it doesn’t happen often, sometime cattle will lay down, get over-centered and be unable to rise again, which can quickly lead to injury or even death. Being lunch time, my Other Half had just happened to stop in at the house and he and I ran out to rope and turn the heifer upright again. Indirectly, our tiny gaggle of geese had saved our heifer’s life.

The next year, the pair returned to try their luck with goslings once again. They dutifully tended to their nest, this time choosing a much wiser location than their previous one. Again, we left them alone and looked forward to seeing a clutch of goslings following behind mama later in the season. At daybreak one morning, I was enjoying a cup of coffee and staring at the geese nurturing their eggs when out of the corner of my eye, a shadow appeared. Flying up high, it grew larger and got close enough for me to see that it was a Golden Eagle. It majestically soared through the air, spotted the nest, flew down, plucked the nest and contents neatly off the bale and flew away with a nice light snack between its talons. For the second year in a row, we were dealing with these melancholy fowl.

Our geese returned for another year this spring, although for the last several seasons, they try to fly under the radar. No more saving lives, no more impressive acts, no more shenanigans… maybe maintaining a lower profile will result in some offspring one of these years.

There is a rumour circulating around the internet right now about the number of questions a four-yearold asks daily. Like most people, I didn’t check the facts but I really liked how the story sounded, so I too shared this rumour, and now I’m taking it one step further and putting it in print. 437. Questions. Daily. That is the apparent number of questions that the average four-year-old asks. I happen to have two four-year-olds in the house, so I’ll let you do the math. I haven’t attempted to tally the number of questions I field in a day, but I suspect that number isn’t entirely out to lunch.

Interested in the plans for the day, I hear: “what are we having for supper? Who is branding today? Where’s dad? Who is branding tomorrow? Can we go there? Who’s gonna be there? Can we go help dad?”

Looking at their surroundings prompts the kids’ enquiring minds and the questions keep coming: “Why do you cut grass? Why can’t the cows eat it? What if we mowed the pasture? Whose truck is that? Do you like this kind of flower? What kind of bird is that? Why does that mama cantaloupe have a baby cantaloupe?” (That last question was actually not referring to melons, but rather antelope, as I later determined.)

If you really want to be subjected to the question-firing squad, throw everyone in a vehicle for a short or long road trip. “Whose corrals are those? Whose bull is that? Whose tractor is that? Whose pasture is this? Why are those cows that colour and not this colour? Is this a community pasture? Do you see the auger over there? What crop is that? How many people are there in the whole world?”

The answers to these types of questions are readily available as we travel around home. Venturing a bit farther away, however, and the questions stay the same, but I don’t always have the answers as to who owns which corrals, and why or where their cows are at the moment. “Why don’t you know, mommy?” is a common refrain from the back seat when we’re four hours from home.

Once in a while, I absent-mindedly answer a question with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ sparking great excitement and “really? Wow!” I quickly review the subject matter and carefully recant my statement with a precision limited to pre-school parents and litigation lawyers.

Every parent fields their share of questions, and it’s only fair as I’m sure I asked a few in my younger days as well. After all, the best way to learn is to ask questions. When I see how quickly my four year old twins are growing, I’m glad that they still seek answers from me, and are genuinely interested in my responses. Someday I won’t be so lucky, and they might not ask questions at all, and I’ll wish that they would.

For now, I’ll keep answering as best I can, and try to enjoy each of the (437 x 2) daily interrogations. As our four-year-olds grow up, their questioning will plateau, level out and eventually even decrease. It will be a brief respite though. Our older children have taken it upon themselves to thoroughly train our youngest child in the ways of the world and based on early indications, it looks like our small fry will be following quickly in her older brothers’ inquisitive footsteps. Which means I’ll continue to field several hundred questions per day for a few more years to come.

We spend a lot of time handling cattle throughout the year. Calving, sorting, trailing, treating, moving, gathering, turning bulls out, bringing bulls in… not a day goes by that we aren’t doing something. Some days everything run smoothly and other days don’t always go as planned but no matter what we’re up to, we are almost always accompanied by one or two of our four-legged Border collie friends.

A good dog can save you many miles, a lot of time, and make working cattle a whole lot more enjoyable. They prove especially handy if, hypothetically speaking, a person left a gate open and a whole bunch of cows and baby calves toddled out said gate and wandered into one’s yard. By administering a few simple instructions from the comfort of my deck, the dogs can round the critters up and chase them back where they belong all without you even breaking a sweat. So far, the only downside that I can see about a good dog is that they can guard a gate but can’t close the darn thing after they put the cows back where they belong. But we’re working on that.

Our dogs are our companions but they are working dogs and take their jobs very seriously. The best way to reward them is…. give them more work, strange as it may sound. Border collies have a boundless enthusiasm, which when channeled appropriately, makes them workaholics. At the end of a long day, when people and horsepower might be running low, they have an ever-present energy, wag their tail and look with interest to the next potential job.

Their affinity for bringing bits of dead unidentifiable varmints (sourced from goodness-knows-where?) and chunks of manure up to the house do not make them the most desirable of house guests. Our dogs are also pretty good at chewing up balls, Frisbees and whatever other super special kids’ toys then can get their grubby paws onto.

They say one year of a dog’s life is equivalent to seven years of a human’s life but I figure when the dog in question is a cattle dog, the formula might need to be adjusted. Cow dogs hang out in the back of a pickup or in a tractor cab, and log a lot of long miles in the pasture trotting behind a horse and rider. They nip at the heels of bovines when asked, dodge a kick (or two) to the head, and sometimes get in the wrong place at the wrong time when a truck or trailer drives away. A dog missing some teeth, an eye, or even part of a limb is sometimes more common than not in the cow dog subculture.

Between the kind look in their loyal eyes, their solid work ethic and the familiar thump of a wagging tail, we can all learn a few lessons from our four-legged friends. Every day is a little bit better when you spend some time with a good dog.

Mules are interesting creatures. They live up to their notoriety of being stubborn. They somehow complete tasks that should be impossible considering they don’t have opposable thumbs. From a biological standpoint, due to a differing number of chromosomes between horses and donkeys, they are unable to reproduce, which is probably a good thing. Mules are eccentric and between those big ol’ ears, they have a strategic, quick-thinking brain.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I should mention that my opinion of mules has been formed solely by my experiences with Dexter, our mule-in-residence. I do not profess to be an expert on mules or their behavior, but I have no shortage of opinions about the one that I happen to share space with.

Dexter showed up in our barnyard one June day with a big red bow around his neck, making a spine-tingling racket that only mules can make. My Other Half had previously been acquainted with Dexter who, at the time, belonged to our neighbor. It turned out Dexter had outlived his usefulness there and made it on the fast-track to our ranch, right in time for my Other Half’s birthday. Over his lifetime Dexter has had several homes before ours, always getting traded for a dog, work, or something or other. Since he has been at our ranch, he has provided us with a constant source of amusement and frustration.Mules can be used to haul feed, pack materials, or pull heavy loads but we ride Dexter as if he were a ranch horse, and he can be surprisingly handy if he’s in the right mood. He can also be slow and cantankerous if he’s not in the right mood. He’s incredibly determined and if you correctly ask him to do something, he’ll complete the task every time, his substantial ears flopping in the breeze. But if you take a short-cut to get him to do what you want, he’ll be sure to punish you for it. Just like any mule, the old fellow has his quirks. When the going gets tough, he gets going….backwards. If he feels nervous or unsure of a situation, he pins his ears back and gets the heck out of Dodge, one giant step backward at a time.

Dexter is a real non-conformist. The horses ignore him, leaving him at the back of the pack when they roam around grazing, yet he gets to have the last laugh as he nimbly leaps over the cattle guard to wander onto my lawn whenever he so chooses. He calmly makes fecal deposits all over my front yard while maintaining eye contact with me, even as I run towards him, pelting rocks and hollering. It’s a funny little game we play. Just as calmly as he hops into my yard, he’ll gracefully jump back across the Texas gate into his rightful home where he belongs, watching closely as I add some additional mule deterrents to the gate.

Sometimes I’ll see him in his pasture when I leave home and he’ll be in the same spot when I return, but large mule-shaped tracks in the fresh snow tell me that he definitely didn’t stay where he belonged the entire time. Blinking innocently, he’ll look my way, and I know that he knows that I know.

Amidst all of his mulish ways, I can’t help but appreciate his character and substance and I definitely don’t underestimate him. We may be at odds from time to time but he has taught me a very valuable lesson — keep your friends close, and your mules closer.