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The members of the Southern Indiana Draft Horse and Mule Association got together on June 7-10, 2018 for
a weekend wagon ride at the farm of Dennis and Edna Taylor near Branchville, Indiana. Branchville is the home of the Branchville Correctional Facility, a medium security prison that houses
about 1,500 adult male inmates located about 15 miles north of Tell City, Indiana. As has become standard practice for this club, most of the members arrived on Thursday afternoon with
the plan to ride on Friday and Saturday. The weekend weather forecast called for hot and humid weather with temperatures in the upper 80's and the chance of pop-up showers especially
on Saturday and Sunday. For once, they were right on. It was hot and humid all weekend and we did have a couple of showers on Saturday afternoon. On Friday, we had 6 wagons/carts and went
for a short 10 to 12 mile ride. One more wagon came in Friday evening and another arrived Saturday morning so we had 8 wagons on Saturday. Our Saturday ride was longer than Friday, but we kept the pace
slow and took lots of shady breaks to let the horses and mules rest and cool down. Some afternoon showers were a big help in keeping the animals cool. As always with this group, every
breakfast and supper was a group meal and there was plenty of food to keep all of us happy (especially with Linda Carver's strawberry shortcake). As you can see from the photos I took, there
are very few in the group who look like they have missed any meals. We all packed up and went home on Sunday morning with the promise to see everyone and do it again in a few weeks at Dexter Marsch's
farm in Hawesville, Ky.
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