MULE TALK! PODCAST: My Favorite Christmas Tradition
My Favorite Christmas Tradition –
- Memories of Grandma baking for days on end.
- Listening to Christmas carols in the evening and hearing stories passed on about our elders’ Christmas past.
- Mother played Christmas songs on the piano as we sang along.
- We opened presents on Christmas eve and Christmas day.
- The mules participated in Christmas parades enjoy playing in the snow.
- The Lucky Three Ranch is decorated with lights every year, that can be seen from the road, where neighbors drive slowly to enjoy the view.
- Celebrating the birth of Jesus is a true joy that brings hope to our future.
Mule Talk is an Every Cowgirl’s Dream production – www.EveryCowgirlsDream.Com
Learn more on Mule Talk podcast.
By Meredith Hodges
Instead, it’s healthier for him, both physically and mentally, to be active and maintained year-round. This does not mean you need to ride him three or four days a week throughout the winter. There are lots of other fun, diverse activities you can enjoy together that will adequately maintain his body condition while keeping him interested and happy.
Since most inclement weather produces slippery ground surfaces, if your equine is to be used extensively, it is important that he have appropriate shoes on his feet during the slippery seasons. On strictly muddy or slippery surfaces, tapping and drilling studs into his shoes can help immensely in giving him added traction. If cared for properly, you can remove these studs when you don’t need them. If you get snow in your area, you may want to go with Borium shoes and rim pads. The Borium shoes supply good traction, while the rim pads prevent snow from balling up in your equine’s feet. I also suggest using splint boots on all four of his legs. This will protect against injury and give him added support and protection of his fetlock joints. Riding on the treacherous winter ground CAREFULLY can actually enhance core strength and postural balance.
learn and practice without the added stress and anxiety of showing and other warm weather activities. But even if you want to forego the lessons, there are numerous stables that will rent the use of their indoor arenas for a nominal fee and there are places where you can trail ride through beautiful winter scenes.
Another great way to have fun with your equine is participating in winter games and holiday parades. Christmas is always a joyous time to bring your equine out of the barn. Consider decorating your equine, dressing up yourself and then riding or driving with friends and family in your local Christmas parade. This can be loads of fun!
Before considering gifts for your family and friends, spend time getting to know their likes and dislikes. It would be better to find out if they even have any interest in live animals and then get them an appropriate book or a video about their interest. If they do show an interest in live animals, plan to spend time together so you can introduce them to the right way to feed, interact and maintain live animals. This approach will provide you all with the warmth and affection that you deserve. With the onset of computers and so much technology, people forget that you can literally travel the world through books and videos. You can learn to communicate better and enjoy deeper relationships. This will greatly expend horizons and offer brighter futures for everyone. This is a much more appropriate way to offer a suitable gift. Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
So that prompted me to get really meticulous about what I did. That’s why I launched into what I did establishing the Loveland Longears Museum and Sculpture Park at Lucky Three Ranch as a 501 (c) 3. We had to develop a “mission statement” to make it legitimate. We did that to teach people, at risk-kids and younger children about the care, maintenance, handling and training of equines in general and not just mules…but, with the primary focus on mules. The focus being like that would ensure that my animals would be part of the 501 3 (c) 3 and would be guaranteed a place in the whole foundation. They would be taken care of!
I hear from people every day that tell me they can’t find good grass hay for their animals. Mules and donkeys, being desert animals have to have a very specific diet or they can easily become obese and then you have all sorts of problems and vert bills up the ying-yang, if they don’t just die. It is really easy to mess up that program. The people that have been with me have been here for more than 20 years. We all operate as a team and not by how many hours are put in. Rather, each day is gauged by the tasks needed to be performed and we do not call it a day until the list is completed each day. We all pitch in to help each other when one person has more to do than the others. Each person has their own specific job description, but we all pitch in together when it is time to do the hay during the hay season.
The two of us girls welcome the opportunity to get out of the office during hay season. The weather is always lovely and working together is a lot of just plain fun. Doing house and office work can get rather tedious when it is so repetitive each day throughout the year. We try to keep up morale by changing up the schedule every so often. There are a lot of things to do like answering the phone, answering peoples’ questions, taking orders, booking tours, distributing orders, keeping the book-keeping straight each day, making Social Media posts regularly, checking the websites connections, both the LTR website and the Jasper website, keeping up the inventory cards in the warehouse and updating all the records for the attorneys and accountants. We also celebrate birthdays 
with our fellow workers, including our remote graphics artist, videographers and with our JASPER MASCOT, Social Media and behind the scenes website help. It is important to keep a happy and enthusiastic crew!
One cannot make any assumptions about what should happen upon your death after you are gone. If you don’t do the things as meticulously as I have done, anything can happen and your animals will suffer. It is better to have it all clearly laid out and in such a way that your designated recipients will be fully aware of what they are signing up for. You will need a clearly stated document about the way YOU care for your equine, so the recipient will know exactly what to do with your animal when they inherit it (How to feed (hay and oats mixes, worming, minerals, exercise, maintenance in a dry lot with limited turnout, social time, training expectations, etc.). This is critical for health of your mules and donkeys. Otherwise, you animals may not be cared for as you desire. Your assets will be at the mercy of other people’s opinions and desires. People can be very selfish in this way. People often believe that you can just turnout in a pasture and that is good enough…NOT! Mules and donkeys are very susceptible to obesity that will usually follow with founder and other things like ringbone and side bones. Poor management is generally due to owner laziness and misinformation that is freely passed around. Beware of advertising and markets techniques. They are not necessarily based in the overall welfare for your equine. Beware of dehydrated cubes and pellets, different oils, minerals, amounts and types of grains, treats, etc. I did my “field” research with 32 equines over a period of 40 years.
The modern contemporary mule of the late 1970s has emerged as a fine saddle, driving and pack animal. No longer does he come from exclusively low grade mares. With the upgrading of mule breeding, the mule is a new, gentle and versatile animal capable of performing well in all forms of equine athletics. He can do cow work, work and pleasure driving, packing, jumping and is better suited for long trails, yet he still possesses all the traits that have made mules popular throughout the centuries: a willingness to work, an easy keeper, more resistance to parasites and disease, extremely surefooted and his indubitable intelligence that is often confused with stubbornness.
particular kind of horse to match the desired ability. A mule out of any breed of horse will be stronger and more durable than the horse out of which he came.
With the coming of the industrial age, their uses were minimized and they were faced with the possibility of extinction in the march of progress. Today, through the persistent determination of mule enthusiasts, mules are once again emerging as a conceivable asset to our economy and a unique form of athletic achievement and entertainment.
Even the army has conceded that mules could make their contribution to the economy through their use in mountain light infantry divisions. The only problem that arises is educating people on mule psychology so that they can train them properly.
Yesterday’s mules sturdy and strong
WEAVERVILLE, N.C. — After Helene isolated western North Carolina communities with landslides, flash flooding and road damage good Samaritans have had to find creative ways to bring in much-needed supplies.
“We will be setting up a staging area and beginning to assist this afternoon,” they wrote on Monday, “and will be bringing up additional loads of supplies once mules are in place!”
Mountain Mule Packer Ranch is based out of Mount Ulla, which is located between Lake Norman and Salisbury in North Carolina. They have been using their Facebook page to announce when they will be at the Food Lion, located at 11745 Statesville Blvd. in Cleveland, NC, to collect donations.
The Mountain Mule Packer Ranch partnered with the Cajun Navy, another group of civilian volunteers, to deliver insulin to a family on Monday, according to their Facebook posts.
8:30am update 10/1/24 Mike and the mule team made it to their staging area in Montreat yesterday and have already been helpful to families in need! They will be doing all they can in Black Mountain today. Thankful to Five 11’s Livestock Hauling for offering help in hauling mules so we could bring more supplies up! And appreciate being able to help support Cajun Navy 2016 on their efforts as well!
The team here at the ranch will be shopping for more supplies today, to restock them tomorrow! We appreciate the huge outpouring of requests on how to get supplies to us. Because of the conditions in the mountains and the way the team will be moving around, that is hard to coordinate. I will bring a trailer to the Food Lion Shopping Center this afternoon at approximately 4pm if there is anyone in the area that wants to add to the supplies we are bringing! Please let me know if this is something you’d like to do, and we can be there between 4-5pm today to collect what you have!! God bless you all, and thank you for keeping prayers lifted up!!
It is important to know the differences among rewards, treats, coaxing and bribing in order to correctly employ the reward system of training called Behavior Modification.
Remember to give your equine a reward only after a specific task you’ve asked for has been performed—or even an assimilation of that task, which means the taking of baby steps toward completing the task. The reward should be given immediately upon completion of the task and then your equine should be allowed time to enjoy his reward before moving on to the next task. If your equine is given a food reward for only good behaviors, he will be more likely to continue to repeat only those behaviors for which he is rewarded and you can begin to “shape” his behavior in a positive way.
As an example of coaxing, you can extend a handful of crimped oats to lure your equine closer to an obstacle, but he should not receive the handful of oats until he completes the required task or travels enough distance toward the obstacle to deserve a reward. If your equine just won’t come all the way to an obstacle, even to get a reward, you can modify the task by asking your equine to just come closer to the obstacle and then halt (but without backing up). Then the reward can be dispensed for the partial approach and halt, because these actions still qualify as an assimilation of the bigger task that is to be completed. If he backs away at all, he should not be rewarded and you will have to go back to the beginning of the task and try again.
Between lessons, let your equine have a day off in order to rest. When you return for the second lesson, tie him to the fence and review with him your last lesson from the very beginning. He should remember the previous lessons and be willing to follow you right away in order to be rewarded. If he seems willing to follow your lead, untie him and ask him to take a step forward just as he did before, but this time, instead of dispensing the food reward when he takes the first step forward, simply say, “Good boy” and ask him for a second step forward before you reward him with the oats. You will now be progressing from one step forward before you reward to two steps forward before you reward.
This is how you begin with leading training, and also how you should proceed with all the new things that you will be teaching your equine. In the beginning of leading training, he gets rewarded for even an assimilation of what you’re asking. For example, when you get to negotiating obstacles, your goal may be to cross over a bridge, but when your equine sees the bridge ahead, he may stop or start backing up. At this point, allow him to back until he stops. Go back and repeat the steps you did prior to approaching the obstacle. Then, asking for only one step at a time, proceed as you did during his flatwork leading training toward the bridge, rewarding each step he takes. Tell him verbally how brave he is and continue to reward any steps he takes toward the obstacle before proceeding forward. Remember to stop at any interval where he becomes tense, ask for one more step to be rewarded, and then allow him to settle and refocus before asking any more from him.
Now you no longer need to reward for one foot on the bridge. This is called “fading or phasing out” the reward for a previous behavior (one step), while introducing the new behavior of walking to the bridge, halting and then putting two front feet up on the bridge. Wait for a moment for him to chew his reward and then ask him to continue onto the bridge, stop and square up with four feet on the bridge and reward. If he does not comply and won’t stop on the bridge, just go back to the beginning, approach the bridge as described and try again until he stops to be rewarded with all four feet placed squarely on the bridge
The last step over the bridge is to bring the hind feet off the bridge, stop and square up one more time before he gets rewarded. This does two things. It causes your equine to be attentive to the number of steps you are asking and it puts him in good posture at each stage so that his body will develop properly. In future lessons, the steps in the approach to the bridge no longer need to be rewarded and as he becomes more attentive, he will learn to stop any time you ask and wait for your cue to proceed. After several months of this meticulous attention to these detailed steps, he will not necessarily need to be rewarded with the food reward each time—a pat on the neck and kind words of support should be sufficient. Rewards can then be given for whole “blocks” of steps when he successfully completes them.
In the natural progression of correct training—including during mounting training—your equine should also be getting rewarded when you’re first getting him used to your being on-board. Give him the oats reward for standing still while you attempt to mount (i.e., walking toward him, holding the left rein and reaching for the saddle horn), and then when you hang from each side of his body with a foot in the stirrup (first on one side and then on the other side), and, finally, from each side of his body while you sit on his back. When you ask him to turn his head to take the oats from your hand, you can be sure his attention will be on you because this action will force him to look at you in order to receive his oats. Then reward him again for standing still as you dismount. Consequently, by the time you actually get to the point of riding in an open arena, he’s been rewarded for having you on his back and for behaving well through all the exercises demanded from him during round pen training.