Feb 10 2009
The Farm Troublemaker
I’m sure most farms have one of those troublemaker critters that you just have to keep around for the personality factor. My troublemaker is a 16-year-old Molly (female) mule named Shy Ann. Even her name is a joke because she’s never been shy in her life.
Shy also goes by other names like Monster, Shyster and Trouble. I got little miss troublemaker from my mom way back when she was only 6 months old and she’s been with me ever since.
Some of the trouble that Shy has gotten into includes opening gates and corral panel pins. Breaking through fencing without ever getting hurt, turning on water faucets and most recently she’s learned to harass the dogs when they are in their dog pen.
A few years back I had adopted a small black colt from the local humane society. The colt had been picked up running loose in the city limits by the animal control officers and had not been reclaimed by his owner. Because the colt was fairly wild and had not been handled much we wanted to keep him in a smaller pen by himself and not out in the large pasture with the rest of the horses. Well Shy didn’t think that was a really nice thing to do so she fiddled with the corral panel pins and was able to open both pins on one of the panels. So when I got home from work, there was the black colt flying through the pasture with all the rest of the horses.
When I was in the Army stationed at Ft. Huachuca, AZ I kept Shy and my old gelding Hobo stabled at the post stables. I worked at the Veterinary clinic on post and I got a call from the stable asking me if I had left the water running for my horses. I told them no I hadn’t. The stable personnel told me that they had just turned the water off in front of my mules stall. When I went back to check on her again after work, I noticed that the water was running again. That is when we found out that she had learned to turn the water faucet. So I placed a metal garbage can over the water faucet to help keep her from playing with the faucet. That actually turned out to be the worst thing I could have done, because the trash can hid the water running until it had flooded most of the riding stable stalls. Yes she learned to turn the trashcan so that the sides would nudge the water faucet handle until the water was turned on. Because we were not able to change stalls due to the fact that all stalls had a water faucet in the same places, our final solution was to duct tape the water faucet and then put the trash can over the top. I had to get a longer hose and use a water faucet from a different stall.
So that is some of the exploits of my farm troublemaker. If you have one at your farm also it would be fun to hear more stories so feel free to leave a comment.
