I’d never seen the likes of Ole Mule, below, headed along the Jeffersonville, Indiana, side of the Ohio before last month. I’ll explain my theory of its function at end of this post so’s you can guess first. I’d held this foto back because I thought to get back to the Ohio watershed this summer, but alas . . . fall or next year.

While the focus remains on these “unnatural” critters, check out the name someone had second thoughts about. Here’s an article discussing mules v. horses on the old Erie Canal.

Eastern Dawn, ex-Delta Mule, ex-Grand Eagle, operates out of Erie Basin.

Eastern Dawn pushed a bargeload of consumables to Governor’s Island for City of Water Day.

You’d think more stuff would move locally through the sixth boro.

So Ole Mule is a dock dredge, guessing by a close-up of the sign on her stern. And I suppose she runs in reverse scraping silt out of a slip to resettle elsewhere downstream?