This was in the spring of the year I was out of school, "the Mule Year" as I call it. This nine or ten months were my first real stint in the cowboy girl life. There was a lot of work involved--about 24/7/365. I did love the animals and did not mind the work as long as things went along with no huge upheavals--but there were too many of them. I had a hard-to-please boss!
Mar 7, 1960
Aren’t we always busy though? This morning we went over to Coon’s and got the rest of our hay. We got sixty one bales. On the way back we stopped to see Queen’s filly. Her name is Countess Maritza and I will call her Ritzi for short. She really is a beautiful little thing, so dainty. Dad thinks she is an Arabian. She does have an Arabian head. Queen was very quiet and even let us pat her. We were exhausted by the time we’d unloaded all the hay and done the chores. We managed to pull ourselves together enough to go out to the pasture and give Bluie a workout with the throwing harness. I guess we’ll ride him tomorrow. I’m almost finished The River Road by Frances Parkinson Keyes. It’s a very good book and not one you can read in a couple of hours. A week from tomorrow was the day I met Buster. I wish I’d see him again. Adios, Gaye
The Coon family had a ranch or farm up the river from Clarkdale. We bought hay from them at times and also pastured some animals there. At this time, we had several mules in various stages of getting trained out there and Queen or Queenie was kind of the bell mare for them. She had come with one of the several batches of mules Dad had bought from a dealer in Kansas named Willis Grumbein. We did not know for awhile that she was carrying a foal when she came to us but the pregnancy became obvious over time. She delivered a few days before this and her baby was a lovely surprise. No, I do not think the foal was Arabian. Queenie was clearly a grade (non-purebred and unregistered) Quarter Horse and I expect she had been bred to a Quarter Horse. Ritzi had a delicate head but developed typical Quarter Horse muscle as she matured.
Blue or Bluie was one of the mules we were working on. The throwing harness was a rig to immobilize the animal without really hurting them and let them get used to be touched and handled. He was not a bad mule and trained well. Sadly, he dislocated a hip somehow and we never could get it totally fixed so he would be sound. He was one that eventually went back to Grumbein's. I expect he was probably put down after a time but never knew.
Buster was the foreman for a guy who had bought several mules from us the preceding year and he became one of my "handsome heroes" and a serious crush for some time. I always hoped to meet him again but that never happened.
Although I worked outside most of most days,I did not lose my reading habit and went up to the library almost every week to get a few books to amuse myself. I loved historical novels and 'westerns' best and of course much preferred books that had a love story woven into the plot.
This was just a pretty typical day at that time. It must have gone fairly smoothly with no major kerfuffles or catastrophes since my tone was pretty calm and stable.
A few photos-not too exciting! My effort at a portrait of "Buster". Mom was feeding Ritzi some grain--about a year old at that time.Little mule Ruby at the side. A view down looking at the corral area at the pasture behind Tuzigoot and south of Tavasci's place. The cowboy girl herself; I made the shirt and was quite pleased with it. I started with a small man's shirt pattern and altered it to a more feminine fit and then experimented with yokes, sleeves and other style features.I made dozens of shirts over the years!
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