Whiskey was a fine horse

Today was the second warmest day of 2009. My car thermometer registered 67, but the TV weather guys were reporting a couple of degrees less. My maple tree in the backyard is beginning to sprout leaves. They are still in the bud stage, but soon they'll be shading the grass and the fresh new pots of prairie grass that PP seeded yesterday. The buds look good against a blue, blue sky.


So I took my act to Fort Snelling and had a trek around Pike Island. The bridge to Pike is accessible, because the mighty Mississippi has receded a bit. The hike around the island is about four miles, and there is plenty of mud on the trails yet. In some places the mud is the trail. I spotted a herd of white-tailed deer flouncing through the mostly bare trees, but they were too fast and too distant to warrant a photo. Maybe next time.

An interesting side story is this grave for a horse named Whiskey near the Fort Snelling Visitor Center at the top of the bluff. It is surrounded by a short white picket fence.


This is what the Minnesota History Center web site has to say about Whiskey:
"U.S. Cavalry horse Whiskey was buried on the fort's grounds in 1943. The trick-performing horse was a popular resident of the fort from the 1920s until his death. Labeled a renegade when he arrived in 1921, Whiskey soon came to the attention of Lt. William Hazelrigg, who spotted the horse's uncanny intelligence. Whiskey was the top horse of the Fort Snelling Blacks polo team and he and Hazelrigg performed widely, including at the Minnesota State Fair. In 1936, at age 25, he was officially retired and lived out his life in leisure in the fort's old cavalry stables with his old performing partners, mules Nat and Snelling. Whiskey's remains, which were in the path of the new light-rail system, were moved to a new location near the Fort Snelling Visitor Center in 2002. Ironically, this location is near the long-gone stables where Whiskey spent his last years."

Who knew that Fort Snelling had a polo team????