High Gas Prices Drive Farmer to Use Mules

I've often wondered if gas prices got high enough if I would start to ride Buddy or Lucy places instead of driving. Not exactly sure how that would work. For one thing, if I rode Lucy to the grocery store, where would I tie her? (As if I wouldn't have been dumped off on the way when she spooked at something.) And if I bought my groceries, how would I carry them?

She thinks grocery bags are the Plastic Bags of Death.

Buddy would do better because he's only half Thoroughbred. Unfortunately, that's sometimes the half he thinks with. Still, he's got the world's best brakes and has more mileage on him, so we could probably get somewhere and back in one piece.  Not sure where I'd tie him, either.

There are farmers who are already using mules instead of their tractor to harvest hay. The farmer says he's saving $70 a day by using the mules instead of the tractor. Here's the AP story:

MCMINNVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - High gas prices have driven a Warren County farmer and his sons to hitch a tractor rake to a pair of mules to gather hay from their fields. T.R. Raymond bought Dolly and Molly at the Dixon mule sale last year. Son Danny Raymond trained them and also modified the tractor rake so the mules could pull it.

T.R. Raymond says the mules are slower than a petroleum-powered tractor, but there are benefits.

"This fuel's so high, you can't afford it," he said. "We can feed these mules cheaper than we can buy fuel. That's the truth."

And Danny Raymond says he just likes using the mules around the farm.

"We've been using them quite a bit," he said.

Brother Robert Raymond added, "It's the way of the future."

 

 

Comments

[mrs mom]

I am with the farmers!

Dear Husband and I have been joking about starting to ride the horses to the store, and I'll be darned if it does not look like an alternative. The mare that boards with us is very well trained, and traffic safe, and Sonny is unflappable as well. (Course, he is not physcially ready to do a store trip.....)

I have been tempted on more than one occassion lately to hop on the mare and go get that milk from the store 2 miles away.... Bet they would love it. Too bad they dont have someplace to tie her... I'd be tempted to get a PT job there to earn gas money...

[Grey Horse Matters]

Well it doesn't seem like a bad idea to use the mules instead of the tractor. Maybe if more farmers did this, it would help the environment, maybe not. Everything is so screwed up in this country, it will take a minor miracle to cure it.

[Transylvanianhorseman]

The Amish have been right all along. And I bet that, efficient as they are, and not having to buy gas, the Amish will be making good money and buying land from defunct tractor farms.

Incidentally, the Amish already manufacture and sell commercially all the implements necessary to operate a farm using horses or mules.

One could apply this at a riding centre too by using a horse to rake the sandschool, cart the manure, chain harrow the pasture, etc.

[Strawberry Lane]

Now, I like this idea. Finally ... someone is making sense.

[risingrainbow]

I've heard lots of people talking about using horses again. It'll be interesting to see if it actually happens in my urban community. lol