One day in early summer, Mary Alice and I stopped at a friend’s farm/greenhouse to purchase flowers. On the way to the greenhouses, we passed the chickens, goats, horses, pigs, cattle and one donkey.

As usual, Mary Alice had a question for me, wanting to know whether the animal was a donkey or a burro. Now I was stumped. Although I believed they were the same animal, I told her that I would check and I did.

I remembered Jesus Christ was placed on a wild burro which no one had sat on to ride into Jerusalem. Then I checked my Ryre Study Bible, where in Matthew 21:1-11 states Jesus was placed on a, donkey and a horse; Mark 11:1-1 states Jesus sat on a colt; Luke 19:28-40 states that Jesus rode a colt that had never been ridden and John 12:12-19 states that Jesue rode a donkey colt. Zechariah 9:9 speaks of a king (Jesus) coming in humility, lowly and riding on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

I checked the definition of a colt and learned that a colt is a young horse typically under four years, which has not been castrated, and is related to a pony, donkey and mule. The donkey is said to come from the African wild ass. It has been used as a work animal for ages.

It is a fertile animal, multiplying in the usual way. A burro is a small, wild (rather than domesticated) donkey. Burro is Spanish for donkey.

By this time, I was confused and to make it worse, I checked on what a mule is. The mule is the result of breeding a male donkey to a female horse. The mule has greater endurance and is stronger and less excitable than a horse. Breeding a male horse to a female donkey produces a hinny. Offspring from either are almost always sterile.

When I was young my family lived in Shamokin which is in the anthracite coal region. My dad worked in the mines and I remember him coming home every day covered with coal dust, except around his eyes and mouth.

My dad hated working in the mines and made us boys promise that we would never work in the mines.

Another remembrance was that my dad always had a tin of lozenges in his pocket. With five children to raise, candy was not a necessity, and we seldom had any. So we often pestered our dad for one of the lozenges. Occasionally, my dad doled one out to each of us.

Most of the time we were told that he needed the lozenges for the mule in the mine, since the mule would not work if he didn’t have any. Eventually we realized that the lozenges were for the miners to keep their throats moist.

After humans first began using animals to work for him, it wasn’t long before he developed hybrids between species.

So never tickle a mule when he’s reposing;

If you disturb his peaceful slumbers, you’re a fool.

If you don’t want to visit the undertaker,

Never take the hind shoe from a mule.

In medieval Europe, horses were bred to be large and strong to carry the armored knights; however, female mules were preferred as riding animals, with males used for pack animals.

In 1495, Christopher Columbus brought four jacks and two jennies to the new world. They were used to produce mules for Spanish expeditions onto the American mainland.

Spain came to the forefront of the mule-breeding industry and until 1893, it was against the law to export Spanish jacks. However in 1785, the King of Spain presented George Washington with a large, black jack, which is believed to have become the father of the mule industry in the United States.

In the United States, the main breeding centers were in Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri. These centers provided mules for the cotton fields of the old south. After the Civil War, tenant farming developed throughout the south, with the saying, “all one needed was forty acres and a mule.”

The business end of a mule is mighty ticklish;

Never, never touch him, as a rule.

He’ll kick you full of holes in seven seconds

Trust him not, there’s mischief in a mule.

A mule became the workhorse of America, being used in every industry, on the battlefield and in the most hostile places such as in the mines. Of course, we have all heard of the famous 20-mule team wagons that hauled borax out of Death Valley. Some western towns were originally laid out with extremely wide streets, and the reason for this was to allow enough room for these mule teams to turn around.

The mule’s popularity declined rapidly when gasoline-driven tractors came into widespread use.

When you see the animal’s old and feeble,

Don’t you never handle him, as a rule.

For you’ll need a chest-protector on your eyebrow.

They’ll lay you on a ton of ice to cool.

Popular belief is that mules are stubborn, lazy and will not put themselves in danger. A horse will work until it drops from exhaustion, however a stubborn mule’s streak shows the handler its limit is being reached and will go no farther.

Mules are very intelligent and have excellent memories. Handlers know not to abuse a mule and that patience is the best method. Now that I think of it, perhaps my dad did give that old mule in the mine a few lozenges to keep him working.

Oh, you’ll think you were struck by seven kinds of lightning,

If you neglect to follow this golden rule:

You’d be too broken up to join the angles

If you bother round the hind part of a mule.

After all these years, my father’s words still echo in my ears: “If I don’t have lozenges for the mule, it won’t work.” Perhaps we all work better with rewards.

I know I do because I remember one time Mary Alice had been after me to clean out our basement, and as usual, I was procrastinating. However, one day she said, “I’ll make you a cherry pie if you clean the basement.”

Yes, I cleaned the basement. Not that I am stubborn as a mule.

So never tickle a mule when he’s reposing;

If you disturb his peaceful slumbers, you a fool.

If you don’t want to visit the undertaker,

Never take the hind shoe from a mule.

The mule song is a Folk Song of the Catskills, by Cazden, Haufrecht and Studer.

Bill Bower is a retired Pennsylvania Game Commission Wildlife Officer. Read his blog and listen to his podcasts on the outdoors at www.onemaningreen.com.