I had such a great time at Montana Mule Days in 2002 that I have been wishing I could go back again, but
the last few years other things have come up and we haven't been able to make it. This year I finally made
it back up there again, and had a wonderful time! We thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with all the great
donkey folks that were there this year, and hope to make it back again next summer!
If you're looking for a fun, laid-back show to participate in with your donkeys, this is the one for
you. It's all about just getting out and having fun! We'd love to see you there next year.
We took Sagebrush Oklahoma Andy and Sagebrush Desert Delight
(aka Lily) with us. At first Andy and Lily weren't sure this was their idea of a "vacation", but once
they got in the groove of it, they really did well.
Andy competed in Mammoth Gelding Halter (placed 4th), Donkey Flag Race (placed 1st), Donkey Keyhole (placed 1st),
Donkey Gamblers Choice Driving (placed 4th), Old Clothes Race (placed 4th against the mules), Donkey Canadian
Maze Driving (placed 1st), Donkey Polebending (placed 2nd), Single Donkey Log Pulling, Donkey Barrel Racing,
Youth Lead Your Donkey to Water, Youth Donkey Keyhole, and Youth Donkey Barrel Racing. Andy was also awarded
the Hi-Point Gaming Donkey award.
Lily competed in Donkey Trail (placed 1st), Mammoth Jennet Halter (placed 3rd), Donkey Flag Race (placed
2nd), Single Donkey Log Pulling (placed 4th), Youth Lead Your Donkey to Water (placed 2nd), Youth Costume
Class (placed 1st out of 9 mules and donkeys), Donkey Barrel Racing (placed 2nd), Donkey Polebending (placed 3rd), and Donkey Keyhole.
Lily was also awarded the Reserve Hi-Point Gaming Donkey award.
Andy & Lily competed together in the Donkey Team Log Pulling (placed 2nd).
Our "Ch'Ears" group of all the donkey folks, organized by Julie Davis, also did a Donkey Light Parade
around the show grounds on Saturday night after dark. We all decorated our donkeys with lights and glow bands,
and had a grand time walking around the grounds letting everyone know we were there. We had quite a few donkeys
in our parade train, and they all did very well with the sights and sounds. Many of them had never been dressed up in
the crazy lights that we brought out for the parade. But none of that bothered them much. They didn't seem to
mind walking around after dark when the shadows were out, and walking through the mud and puddles from the rain
storm earlier in the day. All the donkeys were happy to follow along behind the donkey in front of them.
Hopefully someone got some good photos of our parade that I can post here. I was riding Andy in the parade, so
wasn't able to get any pictures myself.
Here are a few videos of some of our classes:
This first one is Lily doing Donkey
Trail. They had a mail box, tire feeders, "herd" of sheep, deer hide, tree across the trail, bridge, and gate
obstacles along the "trail". Lily had never seen the hide before (a lot of the donkeys & mules have trouble with it),
and I had never practiced the swinging gate with Lily before this class.
Here's a video clip of Lily doing the
Single Donkey Log Pulling. This show was the first time Lily, Andy or I had done log pulling through a course of
cones and with a 16' long bundle of logs. And it was also the first time we had ever done team log pulling (next video).
I had only ever hitched them single to a 8' log one time at home, and drug it around the field to see how they'd react.
Here's Lily and Andy doing the Team
Donkey Log Pulling. In this team log pulling class, there were two entries - us and
another very experienced team. The judge had us stop part way through to fix a trace chain that had somehow dropped off of
the singletree, but I wasn't too worried about the delay because I knew we were just out there for the fun of it and would
be slower than the seasoned team anyway. I was really proud of my team and how well they worked together!
Here are videos of Lily and
Andy in the Youth Lead Your
Donkey to Water class. In this class the handler leads the donkey to a bucket of water and tosses a handfull of water in
the air to signal the end of time. It had rained most of the day before and all night, so the arena was really muddy with
puddles and ponds in between the just-muddy spots. Lily was a really good girl in this class. She took 2nd place. Andy was
cooperative, but decided to stop and do the "I'm waiting for you to move forward..." game on the way to the water bucket.
Andy and his handler both stopped in the middle, and looked at each other like "So are you going to move first?" LOL. Once his handler
stepped out ahead of him, Andy was more than happy to follow along. LOL.
This one is Andy doing the Canadian
Maze. It's a fun driving class where you have a course set up like a "t" shape. You are supposed to enter and exit
all four ends of the "t" exactly 1 time. That's kind of hard to figure out how to do at first, but once you figure out the
pattern that works, it's not too hard. Note: The puddles where from the big rain storm that we hand the night before, but
they didn't seem to bother Andy too much.
Here is another photo of Lily, Santa and me after the Youth Costume Class (photo by
Kristi Kingma).
A picture of the two troopers resting in their pen and munching on some dinner.
And our ribbons and Hi-Point & Reserve Hi-Point Gaming Donkey awards:
|
