Go With What you Know
November SEAHA note from the editor
I spent the Sunday morning before Halloween at the local pumpkin patch and corn maze. It's a popular tradition to be sure, yet this was my first time out. I didn't go to wander the corn and pick orange melons. I want to learn to drive a team, with the idea that one of my three mules is buggy pulling material. A friend from work moonlights there every year driving the horse-drawn public transit system. I could learn the reins while we take tourists on a circuitous route through the quarry for the next Michelangelo's jack-o-lantern and the market for the next Julia Child's extravaganza. There were over 20 Percherons, Clydesdales, and even a team of Norwegian Fjords. Nary a mule in sight. It seems there are Ford men and Chevy men in this world too. But one piece of advice seemed to resonate: Buy a team that already knows how to pull, rather than trying to train your 20 year old mules to do something different. Go with what you know, in affect.
The problem is I don't know what my mules did in their previous lives. In the 3 years since I've had Cricket she's been a saddle mule, and the calmer of my two big ones. I took her elk hunting this year because I had a hunch she would pack meat without fear. I've packed "stuff" on her so she knows what a packsaddle is. But when we rode into an extremely "target rich environment" near Hannagan Meadows I sensed she had never been around so many live elk before. As we entered the field near where we would later shoot one, elk bugled on three sides. If you haven't heard it, the sound a male elk makes isn't like the boogie woogie bugle boy, it's more like the boogie woogie mule monster! The air was filled with unearthly howling whistles, which were supplemented by the aromas of an elk wallow. The uncertain sight of black, burned conifers completed the trilogy for the senses. Cricket's homeland security system went quickly from blue, to orange, to red. Her ears went up, back arched and she kicked up her heels. I quickly dismounted and led her through the monstrous elk pit and into our aspen camp. Less than 24 hours later I led her up the ridge where my quartered elk lay. I wondered how she'd react to the macabre, dismembered scene. She didn't even flinch. "Elk, eh? Pack it on and let's get going." The one time I thought she was worried was as we were about to load and she pivoted 90 degrees on her hitch. She pooped, then circled back to the level spot to be loaded. She's obviously been there, done that. Go with what you know.
I spent the Sunday morning before Halloween at the local pumpkin patch and corn maze. It's a popular tradition to be sure, yet this was my first time out. I didn't go to wander the corn and pick orange melons. I want to learn to drive a team, with the idea that one of my three mules is buggy pulling material. A friend from work moonlights there every year driving the horse-drawn public transit system. I could learn the reins while we take tourists on a circuitous route through the quarry for the next Michelangelo's jack-o-lantern and the market for the next Julia Child's extravaganza. There were over 20 Percherons, Clydesdales, and even a team of Norwegian Fjords. Nary a mule in sight. It seems there are Ford men and Chevy men in this world too. But one piece of advice seemed to resonate: Buy a team that already knows how to pull, rather than trying to train your 20 year old mules to do something different. Go with what you know, in affect.
The problem is I don't know what my mules did in their previous lives. In the 3 years since I've had Cricket she's been a saddle mule, and the calmer of my two big ones. I took her elk hunting this year because I had a hunch she would pack meat without fear. I've packed "stuff" on her so she knows what a packsaddle is. But when we rode into an extremely "target rich environment" near Hannagan Meadows I sensed she had never been around so many live elk before. As we entered the field near where we would later shoot one, elk bugled on three sides. If you haven't heard it, the sound a male elk makes isn't like the boogie woogie bugle boy, it's more like the boogie woogie mule monster! The air was filled with unearthly howling whistles, which were supplemented by the aromas of an elk wallow. The uncertain sight of black, burned conifers completed the trilogy for the senses. Cricket's homeland security system went quickly from blue, to orange, to red. Her ears went up, back arched and she kicked up her heels. I quickly dismounted and led her through the monstrous elk pit and into our aspen camp. Less than 24 hours later I led her up the ridge where my quartered elk lay. I wondered how she'd react to the macabre, dismembered scene. She didn't even flinch. "Elk, eh? Pack it on and let's get going." The one time I thought she was worried was as we were about to load and she pivoted 90 degrees on her hitch. She pooped, then circled back to the level spot to be loaded. She's obviously been there, done that. Go with what you know.
posted by Garrett | 4:30 PM
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