The Power of Poo

Poo collection essentials!

OK so poo, plop, dung, poop, pony apples or whatever you like to call it is an odd subject to post on but boy is it important!  

There is one certainty in the Muleteer house, even more certain than the sun shining or the birds singing…. There will always be poo to pick up!  We Muleteers are always happy to keep FH’s poo bucket topped up and keep her physically exercised with all the collecting.  FH reckons we produce about 25-40 kg of poo a day between us and boy does she go on about it!

Even Catanian gets in on the act as she likes to help FH collect up the poo, generally her role is to stand on FHs feet whilst she is trying to pick up poo, her tool of choice are the ‘pink poo gloves’, on special occasions she may even bring out the ‘purple poo gloves’ – such glamour.

But we have been busy reminded FH of the benefits of poo…. Have you seen our muck heap of late?

Look at those lovely courgettes that are growing there.  Aren’t they a lovely colour?  The humans like to eat these and they grow ever so well in the ‘rotted’ section of the heap. 

We have also got some squash growing there too who are threatening to take over the whole heap like triffids!  They will be ready in the autumn, yum can’t wait, we quite like squash.

The other side of the heap is taken up with the ‘active’ stuff.  This is all our poo and bedding and greenery that needs to rot for a while.  We have one half rotting and the other half rotted. 

The rotting side is all thanks to our wiggly friends – we have billions of them.  Apparently they are otherwise known as worms.  They seem to love our presents and have a lovely time living in the heap where it's always nice and warm.

The heap is also home to grass snakes, slow worms, toads, at least three blackbirds and a multitude of other critters, whoever would have known poo could be this important?

Our poo is also good for making friends….. strange you may say but true we promise.  Every Spring and Autumn we have a ‘Mule’s Gold’ giveaway where the local gardeners come and take away the rotted half (after it’s finished giving its courgettes and squash).  These lovely folk enjoy viewing the ‘producers’ as any fussy customer should and they are always pleased to know that just good natural ingredients goes in to this heap.   They go away smiling with bags of Mule’s Gold which is nicely rotted and makes their garden grow, they always seem to come back for more so it must be good stuff.

So there you have it, the old English saying ‘Where there’s muck there’s brass (meaning money to those not from British background J)’ might not be entirely true but in this house ‘Where there’s poo there’s power’ just might be.

Miaow! FH come back here, you’ve missed a bit!

Grass Tinted Spectacles

Hey everyone, today I am mostly seeing the world through grass tinted spectacles....mmmmm green! 

I have been having problems with those pesky flies on my eyes, they kept trying to drink my mule tears, nasty things don’t they know my eyes are not their drinking fountain?! 

So FH kept bathing and wiping and fussing (don’t tell anyone but I like it when she fusses with my eyes, I love having my face stroked when no ones looking, must keep up my fierce exterior though) and despaired. 


Then she found this fly mask, made some alterations for my mulificent ears and here I am!  She even picked the one with a green grass tint, excellent.
 

I am a big fan of my fly mask, The Mini is pleased because he reckons I’ve ‘copied’ his fashion trend – whatever!  Even Roller has been having a mask on when the flies are really bad, I honestly thought he had enough hair for the job, seems he needs to grow a bit more hair – heaven forbid.

There is definitely an advantage of this fly mask thingy (in addition to the obvious).  It makes all my world seem green and lovely and gives me shade.... a perfect eye mask for a little snooze.

What better way to spend the day than having a little bite to eat and than a lie down?  Nope, FH I am not getting up.... you can either put that thing down and sit with me or go away... I'm happy in my green haze thanks (she obeyed and stroked this Queen Dreamer).

Stay cool Muleteers and remember your sunglasses!

 

 

 

Feeding Time at The Mule Zoo

What's a Mini got to do to get some service round here?  Honestly dinner time here is chaotic!  FH calls it feeding time at the mule zoo.... hmmm charming... we are not common beasts like lions and elephants you know?  The problem here is that like all good restaurants everyone wants to eat at the same time.  Unfortunately here the Maitre D is not very good at crowd control!  I decided some feedback was in order so here's my review of the 'The Mule Restaurant'

When one of us spots FH entering the yard at roughly the right time we all gallop down full speed ahead.  Some of us are better at queueing than others, there is a hierarchy here that must be obeyed.  

Dragon is often first in to the yard, she has longer legs for running to the restaurant than us minis and is definitely greedy.  She pulls her greedy face at FH and squawks.  

Enter my handsomeness who must restore order.... honestly I'm supposed to be a customer, not staff!

I pull my angry ears at Dragon so that she knows I am first to get my starter (yummy vit supplement)

I do have to ensure that I also use my 'I love you' ears for FH as I don't want her to not love me or feed me.... even though I am the customer! 

Roller stays outside the restaurant and stares in through the glass at all the lucky diners, he will wait his turn though as he says some of the other diners have bad manners.

Just when the Maitre D (FH..) is nearly ready to seat us an interloper emerges and barges right on in to the restaurant blocking the path of the Maitre D, some diners think they are worthy of special treatment and always have the look of the cat that got the cream?

Finally we are all seated and given our tasty meals! Roller needs to be quick as it seems naughty Catanian has her eyes on his dinner, I'm not sure that mule vits are good for cats?

Once the vits and mins are dispensed with it's time for the main course, yummy haylage!  I have stuffed my mouth with ample quantities so that Roller doesn't notice it....

Oh no!  The other diner has noticed my spectacular dinner and is trying to help themselves!

Hmmm Roller if you're last at the restaurant you will sometimes get the worst table, sometimes this can even mean that you have to eat facing the wall??!! Ooops...

Dragon is also a 'stuff it all in as fast as you can' kind of girl, her table manners are pretty atrocious, it's a good job we didn't go for spaghetti on our first date, I thought she was sophisticated back then!

Would you believe it!  Dragon has decided that she likes the look of the 'All You Can Eat Buffet' next door?!  Oops it would appear that Dragon has actually inserted herself in to the restaurant kitchen... the chef is gonna be mad at her....

Alas when all the goodies have been exhausted from the menu it's time for the healthy option for dessert...

FH we did not say we wanted to eat at the Health Food Restaurant with it's fibre rich and low sugar dessert menu....uggh :-(

We give this restaurant a 5/10 - lacking in service, the clientele are decidedly pushy, the dessert menu leaves a lot to be desired and the Maitre D is pretty useless ;-) Eat well my friends!

Mule Management: Muleteer Style!

What's it like to live a day in our hooves?  Life here at Muleteer HQ is anything but ordinary but we do have some routines.  I thought I'd show you a 'Day in The Life of'... Welcome to My Life!

Time to Get Out of Bed!

We normally stumble out of bed when FH wakes us up at about 6.30am on a human work day, early!  She sometimes sneaks up and catches us napping and has to wake up our sleepy heads.  If it's not a work day the humans are a bit later.  Often MH will appear at the weekend rather than FH as he is not quite as lazy in the mornings! If the humans are running late I will summon them with my neighbray, it's hilarious, FH can hear me inside and nothing drives her out of bed like my dulcet tones... I'll let you in to a secret..... her alarm clock is also a recording of my sweet voice!

If the weather's not absolutely awful FH then lets us out in the paddock, we get fresh grass every morning even in the Winter.  FH strip grazes our fields so we have enough to last us all year round (and apparently it stops us getting round too?)

Feed Kitty

Next it's time to feed Catanian who will appear from her early morning hunting expeditions.  She miaows and stands on FH's feet until she gets what she wants, she has also rather taken to sitting on the feed room door so FH can't fail to miss her.... like we could!

Mucking Out

Once Catanian has been fed and cuddled FH then starts the cleaning... we are a little untidy!  FH takes out all of the 'presents' that we leave her and takes out the wettest of the bedding.  We minis have a deep straw bed and Dragon has shavings as she prefers this.  Dragon is VERY tidy and keeps her mule palace clean, we are more boyish in our habits shall we say ;-)

The mucking out takes a while depending on whether it's a work day or not... at the weekend there is plenty of time for cuddles, chatting and of course that most British of diversions - a good cup of tea! Beware FH, don't leave that mug on the wall or Roller will knock it off, he likes nothing more than a nice cup of tea to wake up to!  Once FH has finished slacking it's time to get back to the mucking out, we Muleteers do try to assist where we can, errrm Roller I'm not sure that you're supposed to actually eat the broom?

Eventually FH finishes our beds ready for later.  Both stables have rubber mats and bedding and FH keeps the bed swept back as we all like lying on the mats as well as on the bed, FH thinks we're very strange but does as she's told!  Notice that funny chain across our mini palace?  We'll explain that later..

Food and Water

Then it's time to fill up the water buckets.  Our stables have automatic drinkers in them but this is useless as we can't reach them!  FH isn't too bothered though, she likes to check how much we're drinking, honestly it's not wine FH you don't need to worry!  Once the water's full it's time for straw nets and haynets for later.  FH gets lots of help making these from Catanian, she loves playing pounce on the string while FH is struggling to fill them up.

Dragon Excluder

For our friends that follow us, have you ever wondered what that chain across one of the stables is for? It's a Dragon excluder!  We have a slightly funny hierarchy in our herd!  I am of course 'The Boss' and have to be split from Dragon at night otherwise I pinch all her food.... honestly would I do such a thing?  My best mate is Roller who I share with very nicely and don't bully away from his food, we are very happy to share our stable, haylage, straw and treats, I just don't share with girls!  But then Dragon is mean and when I'm not looking she will try to bully my little friend and if she feels like it will chase Roller.  FH came up with the idea of giving Roller a safe place.  So here is the solution.  Roller and I can sneak underneath this chain but fire breathing Dragon can't.  Roller knows that he can duck under this and he is safe ;-)

Roller and the Dragon Excluder!

Daytime Fun!

Once the jobs are done it's time to enjoy ourselves!  We enjoy watching the world go by... the lane next to our home has lots of friendly dog walkers, short ears riders and farmers going past, we enjoy neighbraying at them and keeping up neighbourly relationships, we are quite famous in the area!

Keeping in touch with the neigh-bours

FH quite often leaves nice tasty morsels for us like branches and logs to munch on, must get our fibre!

If the weather's nice and the humans are not at 'work' then it might be time for a walk or a ride :-)

There's always time for snoozing....

Running around

Loving

Day-dreaming

Or of course there always time for eating!  Our favourite thing of all....

Dinner Time!

If the humans are at work we have to wait for their return for dinner time.  We can hear them driving up the lane in their less superior, horse powered vehicles, we can spy on them from our paddock and squawk at them when they arrive home to come and give us dinner and attention.... this is normally about 6pm but might be a bit earlier if they're home already.

We bring ourselves in to our stables (no catching required) and dinner is served!  We all get a tasty treat in the form of Donkey Forage Balancer, FH scatters these little pellets in our stables, we have to spend ages finding them all, yum!

We then get our lovely haylage!  We have high fibre haylage, Dragon gets a nice net full of this, apparently she needs it because she's 'working' we minis have to make do with a few handfuls on the floor!  We are so hard done by.... I am very nice and share well with Roller. As I said before I have been banned from having sleep overs with Dragon as I eat all her food so she has her separate stable and yard... so unfair but at least I don't have to share my bedroom with an annoying girl!

Beauty Treatments

It's then time for our hooves to be cleaned and then a little spruce up (unless we are soaking wet!), I am very partial to this rather odd brush.  Bristle brushes just tickle too much so FH has found this comb for me which I love!  It makes my lips wobble and my eyes go droopy.

Night Time

At night time we don't get shut in to our stables, Dragon doesn't like being shut in and we can't see over the stable door!  So we have our stable doors open and half the yard each.  This means we can wander around, see each other, watch the world go by and get some fresh air.  Have you ever wondered why we have so much electric tape?  The electric tape is a great way of keeping us all in and safe and it doesn't get eaten!  Our Dragon friend in particular loves to eat wood. She would happily munch any fence posts that were put up, FH doesn't blame her this is a normal food for us long ears but does avoid giving her the opportunity, this is what the logs and branches are for Dragon!  The fence is very rarely on but we respect it anyway, we have ample food, friendship and a view so no need to fence break.

Of course us Muleteers don't sleep as long as you lazy humans, we need to eat a lot!  So we get big nets of straw in addition to our haylage to keep us busy, our straw nets are hung inside our stables so they don't get wet and neither do we.  Dragon likes her haylage outside so that she can keep an eye on the trainline and road in the distance, the twinkly lights mesmerise her!

Finally it will be time for bed, we'll very often get visited later on for more strokes and haylage before the lazy humans go to bed, we have more eating to do!

Not bad for a day's work, night night xxxx