Dashing Through the Snow in Potomac

POTOMAC - Potomac's annual winter celebration Christmas Comes Home was held the evening of Dec. 12. More than 100 people attended and enjoyed a tree decorating contest, crafts, festive treats, the Angel tree, holiday music, a silent auction of outdoorsman items and hayrides.

Ray Woodside and his wife Brenda live in Potomac and brought their four mules harnessed and lighted, complete with jingle bells to provide hayrides. Their mules pulled a wagon as a team of four including the wheeler team Ted and Ned and the lead team Rose Bud and Sweet Pea.

Ted and Ned are male mules, or johns, and came from Tennessee. Ray said when they bought them one was very wild and the other had a hoof injury. They are now docile and healed. Because of their size, Ray thinks they are part mammoth, or draft jack and part paint horse. Mules are hybrids from breeding donkeys and horses. "They are 16 hands [equines are measured in four inch increments called hands] and very stout," said Ray.

Sweet Pea and Rose Bud are molly mules, or females. Ray and Brenda bought them about five years ago, one from Montana and the other from Wyoming.

"Neither had much training when we bought them," said Ray. He rode them both the first winter five days a week. Then driving training began. The Woodsides first trained them to drive singly and later as a team. Rose Bud and Sweet Pea are 14.3 and 15 hands tall.

For the Christmas Comes Home event, much preparation is needed to ready the mules.

Mules and harnesses need to be clean and dry and inspected. Their harnesses are leather, except for the lines. The Woodsides drive using overcheck straps on all of the harnesses as it keeps the mules' heads up while driving. If these overchecks were not used the mules might put their heads down and get their bridles hooked on something. Their driving bridles have blinders so the mules focus on the road ahead. The driving bits the Woodsides use fit that particular mule and they wear their own bridles while driving.

Ray "sharp shoes" the mules in the winter for traction and pulling as they would not be able to pull the wagon without them.  "The sharp shoes keep them safe and prevents any slipping on the snow and ice," said Ray. 

Ray and Brenda harnessed their mules in the daylight around 4 p.m. at their home and tied the mules to their winter hitching rail. Then they trailered the mules and hauled the wagon nearer to the community center but under a good outdoor light by 5 p.m.

Then the wagon hitch is prepared for the mules, because the mules are hitched together to the wagon.

"Hitching a team is quite easy as long as the mules are trained correctly," said Ray. They need to stand quietly or problems could occur. "When training new mules [to drive], I always hitch them in a round pen or small corral to start with. This way they can't run off too far," he said.

After almost an hour, the mules are completely hitched up to the wagon. Their harnesses are checked, their shoes are free from ice, and the Christmas lights are draped on them and the Woodsides are bundled up, ready to trot down the road to the community center and give hay rides.

Christmas Comes Home was a three-hour event beginning at 6 p.m. Organizer Ginny Griffin said the community is incredibly lucky to have Ray and Brenda Woodside and their beautiful mules take people for snowy rides through the woods. "These two give so much to do that," she said.

The Potomac community really loves the mules and enjoys getting their pictures taken with them, Ray said. The Woodsides said they enjoy showing people how good mules can work and behave. 

Potomac resident Brad Hall also offered rides for event goers to enjoy riding through the night around Potomac during the Christmas Comes Home event. He had his clean blue tractor hooked up to pull a straw bale-filled wagon.