here comes jack
This morning after a cold night I looked out at the donkeys. They were standing still in the sunlight soaking up the warm morning rays. A few hours later I was ready to go watch the race with friends. I took another look at the donkeys. Jenny was standing next to a small black pine about four feet tall in the meadow. Just standing there. Couldn't find Jack. He was on the other side of the creek. That caught my attention. I wondered what it took to make him decide to cross the water. Surely, Big Mama Donkey had something to do with it. I came home not long after the end of the race, worn out from not enough rest the night before. I wanted to take some sweet grain and some carrots to the donkeys before a nap. Jack was on this side of the creek. Maybe he is discovering that he can cross the water easily. This is the first time that I know of he crossed the creek of his own will. The first time, I'm imagining he crossed it to get away from her kicking him. On the other side he wanted to be back with his baby doll. Considering he crossed the water the first time out of immediate necessity, the second time he thought about it for awhile. I'm thinking after he has crossed it as a result of thinking about it, he has a better understanding that there's nothing to it.
jenny looking pretty
Jack saw me walking toward the gate and here he came, braying, happy to see his friend after the days of ordeal with difficult Jenny. I was happy to hear Jack bray again. Jenny saw me giving Jack a carrot and here she came. Jack turned his back end to her and she moved around him for the carrot. Close as they were, they kicked at each other, half-kicks saying don't get too close. It was a dance they were doing while I held out a handful of grain for each. They gobbled it up like two dogs with one feeding bowl. They are catching on that we take turns. The calf came for some. All three were ecstatic with the good grain. Each one after eating a handful had to lick my hand between the fingers to get the last molecules of that good flavor. Three of them desperate for each handful can be a bit challenging, especially when the donkeys are kicking at each other. One time Jenny turned her rear end to me like she was going to kick. I threw a handful of grain at her rump and said, "Cut that out!". It stopped her. I saw myself for a moment in my mind's eye an old farmer out feeding his animals, talking to them and they mind him. They were frisky today. Jenny did not want to be messed with at all. She would not have being touched. They have been through so much power-handling each other, kicking, biting, using their weight with intent to subdue the other that I understand the motivation for the earliest humans to use a pointed stick to defend themselves from about any animal. If either one of these donkeys took a notion to attack me in earnest, I wouldn't have a chance.
jack
I've stopped wondering what the donkeys will do next. The only thing for me to do is observe, let them teach me the ways of donkeys. Their relationship is different every day. It makes me want to sit out there in the field like Jane Goodall and watch them. Taking carrots and grain to them will have to do for my interaction time. I'm wanting to get acquainted with Jenny, get to know her like I know Jack, but it's going to be a longer process with her, considering the sexual tension they're going through. I'll keep on hand-feeding Jenny and we'll gradually become friends. Even Jack in this crazy time doesn't want me handling him much. He doesn't stand still long enough for me to rub his legs. He and Jenny were dancing around me kicking at each other, inhibiting any interest I might have in talking with them and having some eye-to-eye time with each one. Though they fight all the time, I'm detecting the suggestion of affection between them. Jenny can't let up her guard, so she's anxious all the time about attempted rape. I have a feeling this tension between them will go on until she goes into heat. I'm wondering if this particularly equine foreplay might trigger a heat wave. It is a wearisome struggle for both of them. They know each other's physical frame very well by now, and, like Marsha said, they are playing mind games. Each one is totally focused on the other. I imagine they are tuning in to each other telepathically, too. Or maybe that's what their mind games are about.
jenny's scratching post
I have a suspicion that this time of ongoing attempted rape, both of them zoomed in on each other with a focus of attention that never lets up, is a bonding time. She can't stop thinking about him and he can only think about her. He wants to crawl her bones and she just wants to be friends. She says, You'd be this way with any girl. It's not me you love when you say, Baby I love you. He says, What are you talking about? I never think about what I will miss after the time of my dying, because from that moment on, it doesn't matter and I won't care. But I can say openly and honestly I am happy to have lived long enough to have donkeys in my life. I don't even expect Jack to recognize me in this time of his struggle with a difficult woman, a black belt kick-boxer. I felt like what they were doing while they were kicking each other, drawn together by the two-legged that lives in the human barn, they were sparring. They had no intent to hurt. It was no more than donkey sparring, interacting, feeling each other's power and cleverness, finding each other's vulnerabilities. I was surprised when Jenny made the first moves toward kicking me, then remembered she'd even kicked the calf two or three times, and she doesn't kick the calf. I felt like she was feeling especially aggressive today, defensive, worn out from fighting that crazed sex fiend four days and nights. It's like she was mad at the world and everybody in it. Jack was on automatic pilot. He was feeling a similar anxiety to what Jenny was feeling. He was so tired of being kicked he was in fight back mode, kick for kick. I like my donkeys spirited. I also like them eating from my hands. I was happy to see Jack could take a time out from that mind he was in to bray to his human friend.
jenny and jack
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