As we were packing up groceries we bought at WinCo, Gayle drove up in his pickup and said that himself and Shana his wife followed the Mules on Facebook/3Mules. We said thank you. Gayle said if we ever need a place to stay a few days, the Mules would be welcome.
Little Girl
So a few weeks later, here we are enjoying the company of their goats, horses, dogs, cats, chickens, turkeys, and peacocks. We enjoyed delicious fresh eggs scrambled this morning produced by these happy chickens with plenty of company, room to roam (energy moving freely) produces happy chickens that lay good eggs.
The degree of free energy you have in your life is the degree of happiness you experience in your life. The Mules see this all day every day play itself out in many ways.
The Megatropolis is rapidly destroying the availability and access we the human race has to that energy. Need only to look around the dial on the misery meter that continues to rise.
Pictured above are Gayle, Shana and kids who have created their own connection to Nature’s free flowing energy and happiness.
The Mules have been limited in our mobility and long distance walking due to severe pain. On Wednesday, we headed west along the Kern River headed for the medical center to see the urologist. It seems we have a gallstone the size of a golf ball. Surgery scheduled to get it out. While we are under anesthesia, the doctor will also look at our enlarged prostate.
Will we then be looking for a golf course? No we will continue our ages old sacred way of life spontaneously wandering in one of all four directions how we choose, when we choose. One nation, the 3 Mules Nation, under God with liberty and room for all who know the extreme value of the nomadic way of life which has been practiced through the ages and will continue into the span of infinity.
Little Girl with Paula and Larry of Riverdale Stables, Bakersfield, CA
The Mules want to thank Paula and Larry for allowing me and Little Girl to stay on their property until February 28th when we will see the urologist in regards to the swollen prostate which has pretty much kept us from practicing our nomadic lifestyle of walking all day, every day.
Our tent with broken poles beyond repair
During the storm, Paula and Larry lent us their strong and sturdy REI tent since our tent poles broke. They said we could keep the tent, however it is way too big to carry on Little Girl all day. A tent half this size would fare us well. 6 foot x 5 foot x 40-inches high or something very close is what works best for us. The poles need to be able to fit in the pack boxes.
We have found that tents under $50 sold on the internet are of such poor quality and strength and not usable under our circumstances…tent material is usually paper thin with fiberglass toothpick-like poles or poor quality zippers that break with only a few uses. We are looking for a high quality tent 6 foot by 5 foot by 40-inches and haven’t found one yet on the internet. If you find one that fits what we are looking for, please let us know. Send link so that we can read the dimensions to ensure that the collapsed poles will fit in the pack boxes. Or, if you have a tent these dimensions that you are no longer using, please send us a photo with dimensions and length of collapsed poles.
On Thursday morning, we packed up and left San Emigdio Canyon where we had spent the previous day. That night the temperature at 6,085 feet elevation was below freezing (in the low 20s or high teens with wind chill) – much colder than it was below the mouth of the canyon where we had been camped. Our intended destination was San Diego. The El Camino Viejo a Los Ángeles (Old Road to Los Angeles) is the route to get there by foot from Wind Wolves Preserve.
We traveled up the canyon for 2 hours 45 minutes, then reached the highway at Pine Mountain Club and proceeded east. We reached Frazier Park (elevation 4,542 ft) about 4:30pm. We had walked 6 hours that day with temperatures in the high 30s and decided to stop for the night and exercise our God given and legal right as well as anybody else’s whether traveling by horseback, bicycle or merely walking to use public space when in transit from one place to the next for the purpose of rest.
I unpacked the kids, put them on picket lines, made them comfortable, pitched my tent, ate some oatmeal, and went to sleep.
Upon awakening in the morning, I walked up the bank to check the kids and found Lady to be in distress. I maintained a watch for one hour and decided to get her to a vet.
I called the lady who voluntarily serves as the 3Mules.com admin and informed her to the situation. Using the 3 Mules Facebook page, she contacted the many people who follow and offer their help and support to the Mules on their endless journey through the Megatropolis.
The help the Mules needed materialized in a very short time in the form of Scott Rogers, president of Backcountry Horsemen of California – Kern Sierra Unit, Gretchen and her boss Tom, who came with a horse trailer.
We loaded Lady and Little Girl into the trailer and went to Bakersfield Veterinary Large Animal Hospital where she was thoroughly checked and declared to be in excellent condition for her 38 years of age. (Vet thought that the freezing temperatures at high elevation may have caused her stress as her condition improved at 300 feet above sea level.)
Our camp at Scott’s ranch
The Mules are now at Scott Rogers ranch where they will stay a few days then return to Wind Wolves Preserve. The Mules can no longer expect Lady at her 38 years to serve the Mules as she has so admirably done for most of her life. She is nearing retirement. She has earned and deserves it.
The Mules say thank you to all those who have joined this new nation, a nation growing up within a nation, by giving their hope, faith and energy to this nation. Respect and reverence for this earth and all its inhabitants.
The other day as we were heading back to Wind Wolves after getting groceries and supplies in Bakersfield, the Wild West was materializing before our eyes with a large amount of sheep tracks and droppings left everywhere.
Curious about where these sheep came from and where they were going, we did a Google search on “Bakersfield sheep” and an interesting Los Angeles Times article returned called “End of a Tradition: Young Basque Shepherds No Longer Flock to Calif.” The article discusses the Basque immigrants who have been coming to California for over 100 years to herd sheep as few Americans want these jobs.
What caught our eye in this article the description of Aleman and his nomadic life as a shepherd in California.
“For 21 years Aleman has lived the lonely, nomadic life of a California shepherd. After the winter lambing, Aleman spends April and May in the Mojave Desert watching his flock during spring grazing. He spends his summers on the mile-high meadows of the Owens Valley on the slopes of the Sierra. In the fall, he returns to the Kern County foothills.”
“At one time, Aleman and the other shepherds lived in tents and followed their flocks’ peregrinations by foot over the century-old California Sheep Trail. It was one of the longest animal drives in the nation–400 miles over the Tehachapis to Mojave, up past Lone Pine and Bishop to the high mountain summer meadows of the Sierra and then back to Kern County.”
“We adapted to the loneliness of shepherding better than a lot of people because most of us are from very small villages with few neighbors. We grew up with the isolation.”
Maybe sometime in the future, the Mules will find and explore this 400-mile trail. Have any of our readers ever traveled the California Sheep Trail? If so, tell us about it.
Yesterday after leaving the Old Ridge Route Road, we were going along the highway and Dawn appeared (materialized) out of the mist. She stopped her car and said she was a farrier, asked if we needed anything. We said yes we did. She said, “What?” We said nails, rasp, horse shoes. She said you got it. We said thank you.
Dawn appearing as she did is a perfect example of how the Mules and the energy that is created by the way we live materializes into what we need as we go along one step at a time all day every day.
So the Mules say thank you Dawn for your kindness and support and may the energy of the Mules travel with you.
After spending 11 nights/12 days as guests on The Wildlands Conservancy’s Wind Wolves Preserve, the 3 Mules are back on the road.
San Emigdio Mountains
Back on April 9th, we were going on 33 North towards Bakersfield, in which we first looked south and were enticed by the mountains in Wind Wolves Preserve. It’s a big area at 93,000 acres, the West Coast’s largest nonprofit preserve, in which you don’t see any buildings or any roads, so naturally we thought it would be nice area to go into as we continued on our way to Bakersfield not really expecting to ever go there.
Who Dee Doo broke his pack saddle
On April 14 as we were along 99 heading on our way to Sacramento and south of McFarland, Who-dee-doo decided that he was going to roll onto his back. He rolled right on top of the pack saddle, which was on him, and broke it in half. At that point, I was stranded and couldn’t go anywhere since I need a packsaddle to put my pack boxes with supplies on it. We posted on our 3 Mules Facebook page to see if anybody could bring a packsaddle to help us out.
Backcountry Horsemen of Kern Sierra Unit
Backcountry Horsemen of Kern Sierra Unit responded and brought us a packsaddle and got us back on our feet. The gentleman that brought it said that they were putting on a ride at Wind Wolves that upcoming Saturday and invited us to go there and be a guest for that ride. We accepted and thought it would be a great chance to see Wind Wolves, which we never expected that we’d get. We packed up and headed back to Wind Wolves, which was about 60 miles from where we were. On April 19, the 3 mules meeting up and riding with the Backcountry Horsemen in Wind Wolves Preserve. The Backcountry Horsemen of Kern-Sierra unit also gifted us a membership to their chapter. For that, the Mules are truly honored.
At Wind Wolves Preserve, we were treated very nicely by Dan York, Vice President of Wildlands Conservancy, Landon Peppel (Wind Wolves Preserve manage), Matt Thorp, (Wind Wolves Preserve ranger), Courtney, Melissa, Sarah and the other staff at Wind Wolves. We stayed here for 11 nights/12 days where the Mules explored the canyons and grazed every day. This is a very peaceful place where we were woken up every morning by the sound of birds and lulled to sleep the sound of crickets and frogs.
EasyBoot on Who Dee Doo
At Wind Wolves, in addition to the mules re-fueling, the mules got re-shoed and fitted with the new Easyboots that were delivered to us. Thank you all that helped donate an EasyBoot so that we could get back on the road. Who-dee-doo allowed the EasyBoots to be put on his hoofs, but he still does not allow us to shoe him on his blind side.
The Wildlands Conservancy mission is to “preserve the beauty and biodiversity of the earth and to provide programs so that children may know the wonder and joy of nature.” The Wildlands Conservancy owns and operates California’s largest nonprofit nature preserve system that includes”12 magnificent landscapes spanning over 145,000 acres of diverse mountain, valley, desert, river and ocean front properties. The Wildlands Conservancy purchases and restores landscapes and builds national park quality visitor facilities that are open to the public at no cost.
The Backcountry Horsemen mission is “to improve and promote the use, care and development of California backcountry trails, campsites, streams and meadows; to advocate good trail manners; to promote the conservation and utilization of our backcountry resources in concert with livestock transportation; to keep the backcountry trails and forage areas open to horsemen on all public lands; to support or oppose new proposals, plans and restrictions as related to the interest of horsemen and those persons interested in recreational stock use and enjoying the backcountry; to promote the interest of people who, due to health or physical factors, need transportation other than by foot on backcountry trails; to assist in keeping the public informed of the vital need for a clean backcountry; to promote a working relationship with and keep the work and interests of the Corporation before our local, state and federal officials; and to promote public awareness and interest in the historical aspect of horsemen and stock in the backcountry and to help educate backcountry users on ways to use the trail and forage in a manner that conserves the backcountry resources.”
On the night of 4/29/15 at 6:30pm, we were cited by Kern County Sheriff for criminal trespassing on Halliburton Corporation land. A Halliburton security guard asked us to leave. We said that we would, so we packed up and were walking off Halliburton land when a Kern County law enforcement officer appeared walking towards us and asked us if we would talk to him. We said no and continued walking off of Halliburton land when we were then forcibly stopped by the enforcement officer and eventually charged with criminal trespassing by Halliburton.
This is obviously an American corporation that has no regard or respect for what the Mules represent and live for respect and reverence for this planet and all its inhabitants. We had walked 20-miles. The mules were deserving a good nights rest. They had been carrying the energy of balance all day for people to feel and experience as only they could. There was no good reason for the mules to be treated like this by Halliburton Corporation.
Here are photos of the citation and the open, empty lot that we were told to leave.
