Stories from Bernie's current trip - a mule voyage from Canada to Mexico
Lost Sea Vessel (Fritz Sampson photo)
Traveling from Canada toward Mexico with my Lost Sea mule vessel, I wonder. What would it be like to switch to a 100% Equine Powered Lifestyle? I mean, here I am, traveling across the land under pure mule power. Why not expand on the equine power idea?
Recently, mule Polly and I had a chance to test the notion. While visiting Trent Loos of Hazard, Nebraska, he mentioned he needed to rake some hay with his team of Percherons. Would I be interested in throwing Polly into the hitch?
Two hours later, I was perched next to Trent in a Nebraska hay filed raking alfalfa.
Polly (Left) and Jim (Center) rake hay with Trent Loos at the lines
Okay, so the 900-pound Polly looked sorta’ funny next to Trent’s 2,000-pound Percheron Jim. Still, the two managed to pull the twin hay rake. As we rattled up and down the hay field raking two rows of hay into one (that’s what hay rakes do) Trent explained his views on the overlap between old-fashioned and new-fashioned agriculture.
Raking hay
After an hour and a half of raking, of which Polly contributed half an hour in front of the rake, it became clear Polly and I weren’t ready for the 100% Equine Powered Lifestyle. She was pooped.
Trent rests a pooped Polly
To hear Trent’s hay rake in motion, and listen to Trent’s views on mechanized agriculture, click on the player below.
So did we finish raking with horse and mule? Not quite. Of 15 acres of hay that needed raking, we raked 4. So Trent fired up the tractor and finished the job in half an hour.
Thanks Trent for throwing Polly into your hitch. For those of you interested in learning more about Trent’s informative food production pod casts, be sure to visit Faces of Agriculture…
Traveling across the Great Plains from Canada to Mexico in the Lost Sea Expedition wagon, mule Polly and I encounter all sorts of prairie animals: antelope, deer, rabbits and prairie dogs. Around lakes, we hang out with Western Painted Turtles.
Western Painted Turtle
Imlay (pronounce “Emily”), South Dakota
But those are White Man names.
What, I wondered, did the Lakota Indians, call these creatures?
Recently, while traveling across Pine Ridge Reservation, mule Polly and I spent several days visiting with Lakota Elder Janice Red Willow of Hisle, South Dakota.
Lakota Elder Janice Red Willow
Hisle, South Dakota
Early one morning, with Polly listening in, Janice shared the Lakota names of the prairie fauna surrounding us.
Janice (L) explains as mule Polly and friend listen
Click on the player to listen to Janice Red Willow speak.
Post Script: Thank you, or in your native Lakota, “pila ma yo”, Janice, for putting mule Polly and me up – and keeping us going with “black medicine” (known as coffee aboard the Lost Sea wagon).
Bernie and Polly inspect the Badlands
West of Interior, South Dakota
Scientists and the fossil record tell us the ridge mule Polly and I are occupying in the picture above was once covered in close to a thousand feet of water.
Flash forward to the present. The inland sea’s gone, replaced by guys with mules posing heroically on the highest points of the once-submerged landscape. Arid, with less than a foot of annual precipitation, one wonders. Aside from ego-boosting photos, what’s this land good for?
In one word: Ranching.
Cow and calf country
West of Scenic, South Dakota
Because the South Dakota Badlands are so dry, they can’t be farmed. Instead, they’re home to enormous ranches. In local speak, they’re called “cow and calf operations”. The calves are born to the mother cows in spring who nurse them until they’re old enough to eat grass.
But what happens if a mother cow can’t nurse her calf? Maybe she dies. Maybe she has twins and there’s only enough milk for one to go around. Then what’s a rancher to do?
Enter Ralph Porch.
Ralph Porch
Ralph Porch and his family ranch on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation just south of Interior South Dakota. As mule Polly and I passed through his neck of the Plains, he invited us to spend the night.
The next day, before Polly and I headed out, Ralph asked if I wanted to go feed the bucket calves.
Bucket calves?
Ralph with bucket calves
That’s right, every morning before Ralph starts his regular chores like mending fences, big, tough Ralph Porch feeds calves who’ve lost their moms. He mixes milk from formula, pours it into enormous bottles, and the nursing begins.
The nursing begins
Ready to hear Ralph’s thoughts on bottle feeding? Just click on the player below.
Thanks Ralph, Diana, Shari, Shannon, Shane and Shawn Porch for putting mule Polly and me up and showing me how to bottle feed calves. For more on the Porch family’s ranch and Quarter horses, click here to visit porchfamilyquarterhorses.com.
“Too Proud to Ride a Cow”
By Mule Across America
Often, the story behind a book’s creation is as interesting as the final creation. Join UNC-TV host DG Martin and Bernie for a televised discussion of the Bernie’s Atlantic to Pacific mule voyage – and how the “Too Proud to Ride a Cow” book came into being.
Rick Pariseau: Rat Rancher
Lexington, Oklahoma
While bunking with rat ranchers and a lady wood poacher was adventurous, writing about it in “Too Proud” was even more challenging. That’s where the wool sweater, straight-back chair and sailor’s knot came in…
Curious?
Then tune into UNC-TV’s “North Carolina Bookwatch” for the full story. Here are the dates and times:
Friday, Aug 29 9:30 PM
Sunday, Aug 31 5:00 PM
To read previews or order a copy of “Too Proud to Ride a Cow”, click her to go to the RiverEarth General Store.
To learn more about UNC-TV’s “North Carolina Bookwatch”, click here.
Traveling across the Great Plains in my mule wagon, lots of folks have showed me their collections. Folks like Ted Fladeland up in Saskatchewan, Canada.
Ted Fladeland
Ted shared his mysterious collection of arrow-pierced bottles and drinking glasses. Click here for that story…
Here in the mule wagon, though, I don’t have room to collect stuff. Still, like most travelers, I have this urge to collect oddities. My speciality?
Double-headed farm animals – or rather, photos of them.
Right. It’s an odd interest. Back home in North Carolina, folks like mule Polly’s old owner, my buddy Ronald Hudson, would call it “kwur”, or “queer” if you spelled out the Southern dialect.
But I’m not alone. Seems there are others on these Great Plains that collect more than just photos of double-headed critters. Yep, they collect the heads themselves.
So far the tally of double-headed critters I’ve found between Neptune, Saskatchewan, where I began my voyage, and Hill City, South Dakota, where I’m holed up as of this writing, is:
Calves: 3
Sheep: 1
Humans: 0 (but I’m still looking)
Here, in case you’d like to see them, is my collection. I’ve also noted where you can find the heads in real, or rather stuffed, life.
Double-headed calf #1
Carter County Museum
Ekalaka, Montana
Click here for more about Ekalaka
Double-headed calf #2
Stoneville Saloon
Alzada, Montana
The Stoneville Saloon prides itself as the home of “Cheap Drinks and Lousy Food”. And, a four-eyed calf’s head…
Double-headed calf #3
Rogues Gallery art gallery
Hullet, Wyoming
Double-ewe
Carter County Museum
Ekalaka, Montana
Click here for more about Ekalaka
Okay, I was kidding about looking for a double-headed human. Still, if you know of a two-headed mule out here, contact mule Polly and me…!
The focus of my Canada to Mexico mule wagon journey is the Lost Sea, or Western Interior Seaway as geologists call it. That’s the ancient sea that covered the Great Plains 75 million years ago. Along the way, I interview, photograph and film farmers, ranchers, Native Americans, churches and just plain whoever will talk to me about the great inland sea that submerged the North American continent.
For the most part, I shoot in color. Still, deep inside my mule traveling heart, some photos feel better in black and white. Here’s a selection from the Black Hills of South Dakota.
Jawbone
Rochford, SD
Tractor
Pringle, SD
Tipi Poles
Outside Hill City, SD
You’ve got your sea signs and you’ve got your Lost Sea signs.
Cat’s paw
500 miles off Africa
A few years ago, while sailing alone around the world on my sailboat Sea Bird, I was surrounded by sea signs. A cat’s paw heading my way on a calm day heralded a puff of wind’s arrival. In reefy anchorages, light-colored water signaled shallow water. (For film footage of this and other sailing footage, check out the “65 Days at Sea” DVD preview.)
Sea Bird anchored in shallow water (light blue) off the beach
St Thomas, USVI
Out here traveling across the Lost Sea in my mule wagon though, the signs are more direct. The following are a few of my favorites.
Outside Hulett, Wyoming
No Sir, wasn’t even thinking about it…
Hulett, Wyoming
Funny how runaways love company. I ran across this sign in Hulett, Wyoming a few days after Polly ran away……
Beach, North Dakota
I used to worry about my Carbon footprint. Now it’s the Carbohydrate footprint that I have to reduce
Between Hill City and Rapid City, South Dakota
Mule owners have always suspected there was something funny about the space between those ears. Now they now what it’s called – and just how close it is.
South of Caputa, SD
Mr.Space Man, don’t even think of parking in this pasture….
Enjoy the signs around you.
Scenic, South Dakota
In Scenic, South Dakota, they call it bare bronc riding. The concept is simple. You climb onto a bronc, hang on tight and try to last eight seconds as the critter does its best to buck your brains out. Traditionally, it’s been the domain of brute strength and men.
Then, in the early 1950s, Twila Merrill came along.
Recently, while traveling through the South Dakota Badlands with mule Polly and the Lost Sea Expedition wagon, I stopped in Scenic for a few days to visit with Twila. Because the focus of my Lost Sea Expedition is to learn more about the great inland sea that once covered the Great Plains, I was curious to hear about the turtle fossils Twila had collected over the years. I quickly found dead turtles paled by comparison to her bare bronc days.
Twila Merrill with turtle fossil
Scenic, South Dakota
To hear what she had to say on the subject, click on the audio player below.
Thanks, Twila, for serving mule Polly three squares a day during our visit to Scenic.
Western South Dakota, which mule Polly and I are currently crossing on our Canada to Mexico Lost Sea Expedition, is a land of precipitation extremes.
The land we’re crossing
Badlands National Park, SD
75 million years ago, it was covered in hundreds of feet of salt water. Now it gets by on a foot or less of annual precipitation – often less.
Mule voyaging on an inch of rain per month
Hurley Butte
Outside Interior, SD
After 8 years of drought, the moisture’s returned. Not gentle-like mind you. Nope, where talking Noah’s Flood style, sort of like the ancient Lost Sea’s returning. Example. The daughter of a rancher I stayed with outside Rapid City had her garage knocked off its foundation by a neighbor’s house that came whistling by in a flash flood. A day later, mule Polly and I knocked off early when a flash flood submerged Antelope Creek Road.
Antelope Creek flash floods
Caputa, SD
There was no way to cross the torrent of fence posts, cotton wood snags and prairie grass spilling across the gravel road.
Seems you can’t just have a warm spring rain here in the South Daktoa. That’s how I ended up hiding the Lost Sea wagon under a cake bin.
Right, I’d better explain.
Cake bin?
Yep, it’s what holds cow cake.
Cow cake has nothing to do Betty Crocker triple layer pound cake and even less to do with cow pies. It doesn’t even look like cake. Rather, it resembles an oversized feed pellet, about the size of piece of sidewalk chalk.
Cow cake
It’s made of corn, oats and in the spring, if the grass is really lush, as it’s been this year, supplemental magnesium.
Seems in spring, the cattle in this part of South Dakota are susceptible to “grass tetni”. Grass tetni has nothing to do with rusty nails.
I learned all this from Casey Vaughn and Patti Oleic who hosted mule Polly and me recently. They ranch outside Scenic, South Dakota.
Casey explains.
Casey explains corn cake
“Mostly it affects lactating cows. A cow can only store magnesium for 24 hours in its system. So it needs to get some every day. When the grass is really rich and a cow is nursing a calf, its body can become magnesium deficient.” The cow collapses and only a few pints of magnesium solution, administered by IV within hours of the cow’s sickening, can save the cow.
This time of year, supplemental magnesium added to cow cake helps prevent this condition.
Cow cake is stored in a cake bin. No, it’s not a tin you’d put cookies in. Rather, it’s a giant hopper that rests about ten feet above the ground on steel legs. According to Casey, it holds a “semi load” full of cow cake – about 22 tons. A hole in the bottom of the bin dispenses it.
Loading cow cake from the bin
So how do you feed cow cake?
With a cake feeder, of course.
The cake feeder is a box-shaped contraption mounted on the back of a pick up truck, in Patti’s case, a Ford of indeterminate age. The truck and feeder are backed under the cake bin. The slot at the bottom of the bin is opened and fills the feeder “with about 600 pounds of cake”.
Loading the cake feeder
When the cake feeder’s loaded, Patti drives the the truck out to cattle, pushes a button in the cab, and an auger in the feeder dispenses the cake in a orderly flow of pellets.
Feeding cake
Well, that’s when the contraption works. “It gets stuck lots,” Patti notes “so lots of times I put the cake in buckets and feed it that way.” Each cow gets about 2 pounds of cake. They’re tame enough to be hand fed.
When the cake feeder breaks…
So why hide mu wagon under a cake bin?
To keep the solar panels being smashed by hail.
Badlands hail that pelted the Lost Sea wagon
The evening I visited with Patti and Casey, hail was forecast. Turns out Patti’s cow cake bin was just tall enough for me to park my wagon under. That meant I didn’t have to cover the fragile panel with empty water jugs and the old sail I carry aboard the wagon. I just rolled the wagon under the hopper.
Hiding the Lost Sea wagon under the cake bin
(wagon is yellow figure at 5:00 position)
For a clue on how we got the aerial shot click here….
So did it hail the night I hid my wagon?
Nope, sure didn’t.
Which is a good thing. Right, my solar panel didn’t get smashed. Better yet, and I say this with pride, I get to boast I once (almost) saved my solar panel by hiding it under 22 tons of a cow cake.
Thanks, Patti and Casey, for having your cow cake save my bacon.
Almost….
Traveling across the ancient sea bed of the Western Interior Seaway, which I refer to as the Lost Sea, I’m always on the lookout for marine fossils – and a good place to sneak a nap.
Imagine my surprise when mule Polly and I came across a dinosaur.
Coming across a dinosaur
Creston, SD
This I had to investigate.
A bit of searching turned up the dinosaur’s caretaker, Harvey McPherson. Harvey runs the ranch owned by Ken Wilson, where the dinosaur lives. In a addition to caring for the ranch’s red angus cattle, Harvey’s become a sort of on-site dinosaur guide. On a recent morning, standing in front of the enormous green creature, Harvey gave me his take on the critter’s history.
Harvey McPherson
To listen to Harvey’s version of the story, click on the audio player below.
Harvey in front of dinosaur
What I found fascinating about the Creston dinosaur story is that as Polly and I continued our journey across the Badlands, I started coming across all sorts of stories about the dinosaur’s past. The day after I visited with Harvey and the dinosaur, I caught up with Kathleen Ann, the grand daughter of the man who built the Creston Dinousaur. RiverEarth.com will air her story soon.
So what did I learn from Harvey and Kathleen’s stories?
That every grown up, kid and mule traveler should take time to listen to dinosaur stories. Then take a nap with one. And, of course, take a photo.
Self portrait with dinosaur
Happy napping!
Thanks Harvey and Kathleen for sharing your stories with mule Polly and me.
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