BRAYS OF OUR LIVES

If you're within mulebackriding distance of Oakland, California tonight, head on over to Tamales For Booze  at the lovely home of my human Aunt and Uncle, Erin and North. The great thing about this party is that they have ten boy chickens that they have cooked into delicious tamales. This means ten fewer brays in the world to compete with mine! The sad thing about this party is that they have ten boy chickens that they have cooked into delicious tamales. Their names were  Rusty, Butters, Big Red, Little Red, Tut, Chip, Dale, Bluto, Bert and Ernie. 

"One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this:  To rise above the little things." —John Burroughs I think that this man meant that the mules should always remain senior in rank to the goats and chickens, which is not too hard (though Missy, Supreme Empress of All that the Light Touches, does offer the occasional momentary challenge). If he meant that we were supposed to be physically taller than them then that is no problem whatsoever, and in fact is so easily accomplished that I don't see why he would bother writing a sentence about it at all. So I think my first guess was right.  Analyzing literature is only one of my strengths. This decade, 2010 through 2019, I would like to develop even more strengths.  I will share a couple of my goals with you, my loyal readership, in order that you might be inspired to set your own aspirations on something as noble this New Year's Eve. 1. I would like to compel the FarmWife to get a reflective coat wi...

I use and recommend the beta biothane halter from bioplastics, ebay seller. I am getting a new halter for Christmas, as well as a brass "Fenway Bartholomule" name plate. I will look like a very rich mule with my very fine personalized halter, and only the cattle who didn't die or people who stand inside my personal space bubble will know that it's not leather.

There have been questions (thank you, Becky) about whether Fenway Park was named after me. I can only answer to those who are willing to suspend their disbelief in the paranormal, because the answer points to the murky folds in the space-time continuum. I have heard that in every generation there is born a seer with the power to glimpse beyond the here and now. I am sure that there was someone like this born the year they made Fenway Park, because how else would they have known that I would be born many years later in 1994? The other layer of complexity is that my first name was Buckeye, and that my true identity as Fenway Bartholomule was not revealed until last February when I came to Bent Barrow Farm. The husband here has a fondness for the Red Sox, which must have come to him as a premonition of the important role that a mule named Fenway Bartholomule, né Buckeye, would one day have in his life. It is almost too much to ponder unless you like mind-bending science fiction with conv...

To the uninformed, it may appear that I spend nearly all of every day standing around or nibbling tender grasses, but I think it would be easy for all of you to understand my importance if you only just looked deeper. I have many jobs on Bent Barrow Farm but there are seven that are especially key. 1. Taking FarmWife on our weekly tours of the countryside. This is the one that most people think of when they meet me and I don't really understand completely, since this is leisure time for both of us, but it's got to be important because the humans talk about it all the time.  2. Providing the goats companionship and guidance. I do realize that the goats have feelings too, even though their feelings are usually jealousy or spite or false superiority. It would be sad if they had no one to set a good example for them. 3. Monitoring the Perimeter. I make sure that no one can come into or out of the Bent Barrow Farm vicinity without sounding the alarm. The alarm, of course, i...

Today my FarmWife was faced with a choice between taking a bike ride with her human child and taking a mule ride with me. She opted for the latter, but came home walking with a flat tire. I don't know if there's a moral in this, but I do know that I wouldn't have gotten a flat tire if she had picked me.  Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "but Fenway, you might have come up lame." I say to you this: 1. I would not have come up lame because I have hooves of steel and legs of titanium. (Knock on wood). 2. Mules are made of sturdier stock than that! and 3. Even if I had, which I wouldn't have, the FarmWife would have enjoyed the pleasure of my company as we walked home side by side. 

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Watch this space for exciting developments in the life of Fenway Bartholomule! In the meantime, keep an eye on my facebook fan page for up-to-the-minute updates.