that's me and annie the mule. we went for a drive today courtesy otis calef, the president of sbtc board of directors.
honey and otis
bright an early this morning i showed up at jim's house, where otis keeps his mules. jim kindly loaned me his wife's saddle, which was already mounted on annie.
jim and annie
one of jim's cattle dogs
note the bok choy growing like weeds in jim's yard. jim harvested a whole grocery bag of it along with limes and habanero peppers for me to take home.
buddy and otis, taken during our ride to santa ynez
a very nervous schmee
who knew mules were so big? i imagined them to be more the size of donkeys than horses. annie is the same size as the rocky mountain horse riding in our group. and this would be why:
that dang mule was constantly eating. as soon as otis took his eyes off her, she headed straight for the oak tree and grabbed herself a branch. she continued eating through out the entire drive. it didn't matter if we were resting or moving. she had her head down grabbing at the grasses so frequently that ben commented how she looked like a vacuum cleaner.
looking ahead toward natalie and otis
looking back at ben and his mule timmy
ben studied archeology and is teaching natural history at midland school. he knows the area well so it was nice to pick his brain.
because timmy wanted to hang back, i handed ben the camera so he could get pictures of the group riding. my exact request: please take lots of pictures of me!
ascending adobe creek trail
perfect day, fantastic views
ben, natalie on her horse, and otis
(taken with iphone as ben had my camera)
ray ford was working on extending the adobe creek trail. we interrupted his john deer session for some schooling.
ray ford at his best
otis and honey listening to ray
on the way back ben didn't take many pictures and neither did i. annie decided to gallop down the steeper sections so i had to hold on for dear life. she kept running no matter how hard i pulled on the reigns. in fact, she didn't respond to one single command all day. scumbag mule.
timmy's eye
the three hour mule drive ended at 1:15 pm. my knees and bum were sufficiently sore. i couldn't wait to get off the gluttonous mule lest she decides to throw me off. anyway, we dropped off ben and timmy at midland on our way out.
