I apologize for not writing in a while, things have been a little... unhinged, around here, if you will. I am about to share with you the real life events that have taken place in my world as of late, that the average person could simply not make up.
I have the strangest life.
About three weeks ago, we got home around 8:30 pm and my feeding routine at the time was to go catch Buttercup, Gus, and Jasper, tie them all up, then feed them their hay and grain. This was mostly to help normalize being handled for Jasper. However, I had started feeling under the weather earlier that day and was exhausted. I planned to just throw hay over the fence and call it a night...
BUT!
There's always fuckingsomething around here..
And this ^ was the particular "fucking something" that night. Jasper's halter had come over one ear and so I had to fix it before going to bed. No big deal, right? Just slip it back over his ear and move on.. how hard could that be? How badly could your entire life get fucked up from this one teensy weensie little mule ear on the wrong side of a halter???
He absolutely WOULD NOT let me fix it. For whatever reason, he got all hyped up and weird about it and wouldn't even let my hand get close, much less slip it back over his ear. I tried super slowly and patiently for about an hour with no progress so I tied him up and was a little more aggressive.. which resulted in him blowing up, rearing, and breaking his lead rope clip in half...
I tried everything I could think of for about 3 hours and was seriously losing steam. I had had enough and decided I was just going to get it over with. I tied him up pretty short and was just going to ninja it over his ear and be done with it.
I reached up, trying to keep my body out of the way if he reared up again, and I yanked it over his ear and he
FREAKED THE FUCK OUT.
Unfortunately, he did not rear backwards as I had anticipated and lunged forward in his little rodeo extravaganza, pinning me with his lead rope against the fence.. ya ya.. a rookie move, I know. I had the lead rope across my back and fence rail up in my abdomen and ribs and the more he lunged and bucked the tighter he squeezed me in there. I won't lie you guys, I for realzies thought I was going to die. I have no idea how long I was wedged in there, but I remember thinking that my spine was going to snap.
I am not super clear on what happened after that. I know I ended up underneath of him, getting trampled as I tried to crawl under the fence to safety. The next thing I knew, Casey was hovering over me along with a bunch of spinny stars. He had heard me screaming from inside the house and ran out in his socks.. I think it scared the tits right off him.
I was able to stand up and nothing appeared to be broken so I let Jasper go and went inside. We peeled my clothes off and my body seemed to be in one piece. I now wish we took a photo of the line on my back from the lead rope.. but I wasn't thinking about my email diary just then. I was nauseous and my head was pounding after the adrenaline wore off but I was so exhausted that I just crawled into bed and passed the F out.
The next morning I felt like I had been hit by a train.. I had a pretty gnarly injury on my scalp, where I now assume I took a hoof to my head. My vision was blurry that entire day. I also must have had some serious whiplash because my front neck muscles hurt just to speak and turning my head from side to side was out of the question. You could visibly see the swelling of my liver externally.. But thankfully, I wasn't shitting, pissing, or puking blood..
guys.
I got my ass kicked... by an ass..
hard.
I just stayed in bed the entire day. The next day, I felt even worse. It was really hard to tell what hurt and where as far as my head and neck and back, but when I could hardly swallow my ibuprofen, I decided that my throat did hurt on the inside as well... so I took a home covid test..
Talk about getting spit on when you're already down from getting kicked.
How and where did I get covid? again? I have no idea. But heck. If you're gonna have covid, might as well get it over with while you're already bed ridden and have a mild concussion.
I quarantined in our cabin and rested up for a few more days. I'm mostly better now other than some lingering back pain and being completely behind in life in every single way. I feel lucky that it wasn't much worse, as it easily could have been. god damn mules.
I shouldn't have pushed Jasper that night the way I did, and in hindsight, only think I did because I was already feeling ill. ugh. Since then, my dad has moved Jasper over to his house next door to keep working with him daily since I was outta commish for a minute and it is his mule after all. My dad is making a lot of progress with him earning his trust but we still have a long, long ways to go.
We had the vet come sedate both mules the other day to get their back hooves trimmed and their health continues to progress all the time. They are now fully vaxed, wormed, and trimmed up, woohoo! Just look how good ole Gussy boy is starting to look.. he might just even be handsome:
And for those of you who are new here or don't read all the diaries, here is what Gus looked like 6 weeks ago:
I'm sure the journey to health has been profoundly impacted by all the generous treat gifts these guys have been receiving!!!
HOLY COWBOY!! This isn't even all of it. I had to awkwardly explain to our local postal worker that the influx of packages were all fan mail for our mules..
Thank you all so much. Thank you Thank you THANK YOU!!! I think we now have like at least 2 years supply of treats. Buttercup is not sad about the little treat bonus from having the pesky boys around.
Welp. I sat down to write today to tell you about my shenanigans since the covid-y/trample-y situation but I had so much to catch you up on this is going to have to be a two parter..
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