The Mule Jumped Over the Moon

Our BARn Mule by Lanie Frick

Get comfortable because I have a not too short story about how the Mule Jumped Over the Moon.

The Missouri Mule became part of the Piney River story in 2011. First, I spied a handsome mule with it’s head sticking out of a barn in a painting for auction at a local charity event. Local artist, Lanie Frick, created the mule, and for me, it was love a first sight. I had to have that mule. The bidding got a little heated (it was a live auction), but that mule, my first mule, went to the BARn where it hangs today.

Then when it came time to brew an IPA–a beer with some kick–our thoughts harkened back to the mule. You can read the story of Missouri Mule IPA from the May 2011 blog post, but to quote it here: Missouri was a state that raised many prize mules throughout the years (after all, the mule is the Missouri state animal), and after learning that mules are renowned for their ability pack bigger loads for longer than any other animal, it did seem really fitting that a beer brewed in the Ozarks and packed full of hops would be called “Missouri Mule”. 

Missouri Mule IPA became the first Missouri-made IPA to be canned in the state of Missouri. And on our Aleiversary in 2013 we made Mule Team, an Imperial IPA with even more kick! The can art has had a few iterations over the years, and my favorite may be the one we use today which honors the work of the mule and the farmer, working side by side in the field.

We don’t own an actual mule (nor do we plan to), but mules are integral to the Ozarks. Many mules carried people and possessions to the Ozarks. Many historical photos show an Ozark homestead with some rag tag kids, a chicken or goat, and a mule. The mule carried the burden of the work on many Ozark farms before tractors sputtered to life among our hills. Mules are smart and strong animals. We don’t own one, but we do love them.

I’ll go so far as to say I have a favorite mule song, “Hard Times” by Gillian Welch:

There was a camp town man, used to plow and sing
And he loved that mule and the mule loved him
When the day got long as it does about now
I’d hear him singing to his mule cow
Calling, “Come on my sweet old girl, and I’ll bet the whole damn world
That we’re gonna make it yet to the end of the row

My grandfather understood mule power. He celebrated it. He reveled in it. He always said that what makes a mule a better worker than the horse or the donkey is that he inherited the best from both of them: strong hindquarters from his dame and strong shoulders from his sire. He said, “The gospel according to the mule is push and pull.” When his wife died young of a fever, it was not a horse but Orphan Lad who pulled her coffin slowly to the burying ground, a thing the prouder men of the county later felt moved to comment on in the back room of the feed store.

Words about a mule can make a girl weep.

Somewhere interspersed with beer making and music listening and short story reading is an artist that I stumbled upon one day on Instagram–Church Goin Mule. As you might guess, many of Mule’s works feature mules, and just like a good mule, they carry the works through good times and bad, hope and despair, work and play. Church Goin Mule lives in the Mississippi Delta, and the terrain is different than my home, but it’s rural land, sparsely populated, agrarian, full of critters. The soul of the Delta is almost tangible in every mule, plant, animal, building Mule creates. Her love and connection to her place reminds me of the Ozarks, and I am drawn to her work.

Church Goin Mule’s artist statement:

Church Goin Mule’s work is a memory jug, a death-vase mash of the collective southern past, pearls and rusted nails, song and story, lore and loss.

The mule is our common ground, the creature that every man, woman and child of all origin knew, in a time before t-models and tractors.

In a time of remarkable and perhaps increasing polarity, the mule is our grounding rod, pointing to not a better past, but a different one.

The blues was born behind a plowing mule. Stories and poems, jokes and songs were prolific about the south’s four legged machine.

Like much of our history, it’s been forgotten and framed to tell a different tale. That story is a well known one, of glory and triumph. Our true story, our true flag is the white one of surrender, and of hard work, poverty and loss.

The mule was the first hybrid and he was always there, able to work harder, live longer, eat less. He stood beside moonshiners, levee builders, cotton farmers, timber-haulers, oil drillers, sugar cane men. He worked six days and brought his folks to church and town on the seventh.

Check out this little story from one of her shows.

And this is my very own Church Goin Mule….

From Cleveland, MS to Bucyrus, MO

In 2022 Brian and Andy found this original Church Goin Mule piece that made them think of me, of our life in the Ozarks. It’s one of the first things I see in the morning and one of the last things I see before I go to bed.

 

Here are a few postcards from Mule that have made my mailbox happy over the past year, too.

Piney River followers may have collected our Aleiversary posters over the years. They pay homage to many different things in the Ozarks and in the history of our brewery. Our graphic designer, Brooke Kipp with Grindstone Design in Elk Creek, MO has always done a great job turning my thoughts into something fun to advertise our annual anniversary event.

 

This year I started thinking about a big ol’ full moon over the BARn (something that happens regularly), and when I thought about imagery related to a full moon over a barn, I kept thinking of “the cow jumped over the moon”, which seemed pretty appropriate for a farm brewery in the Ozarks. Then I remembered that we would be brewing Mule Team IPA for our 2024 celebration, Aleiversary #14, and…”Eureka! A mule will jump over the moon.” And I realized that I had already seen a mule jump over the moon by Church Goin’ Mule, and it just didn’t seem right to not ask her first if she would be willing to fly a Missouri Mule right over the BARn for us.

 

Although Mule was always in my Instagram feed, and I had an original work on the wall, and I was on her mailing list, I didn’t actually know her. I figured it was worth a shot to see if she would be interested in helping my Aleiversary poster dreams come true, so I sent her a message. Turns out, Mule was very willing to conjure a mule over the BARn. I also found out that IPA is the only thing she drinks. Personally, I think this was actually was written long before she or I ever read the book.

Church Goin Mule – 2025

Seriously, could that picture be any better?! Literally, we messaged a couple of times, I told Mule I wanted a mule jumping over the moon over the BARn, and it was like Mule read my mind. She sent “a draft”, and I was like, “DONE!” Amazing. Did I mention that a mule can make a girl weep?

 

And with a little tweaking and some word work by Grindstone Design, the 2025 14th Aleiversary poster was designed. There are a few for sale at the BARn. Be sure to add Church Goin Mule to your Instagram feed. I’m hoping we can get her to come visit us at the BARn for Missouri Mule on draft someday soon.

That’s the unabridged version of how the Mule Jumped Over the Moon in Bucyrus. Thanks for taking the time to read it!