BEAUTIFUL DONKEY JEN

jenny and jack

The night of the full moon Jenny would not let me shovel dirt onto her baby. Sometime in the night she dragged her baby out of the hole and about half way to the place of birthing. I discovered her night activity in the morning. She would not let me near the body. She grazed around it, sometimes nudged it to make it move, and would lie on her side, holding her head up like a horse's head on the Parthenon in Athens. It appears a warrior kind of stance she makes with her head up and alert, her mane spiked out like punk donkey. She is ready to take on anything that comes after her baby. She knows the wild animals around here. She looks like she is ready to take on a bear or a mountain lion. Unafraid. Jenny has a powerful boldness in her nature. The full moon night I walked to the grave to shovel dirt, Jenny followed me close behind, her nose almost touching my back. I have no fear of Jenny, though I do know she can push me in the back with her nose hard enough to knock me down. It would be a gesture to get my attention. She moved around in front, between me and the grave. Jack was walking beside me on my right. Jenny spun around quick as a cat. Jack and I both jumped back by automatic reflex. When Jenny swings her rear end around on you, it's time to scatter. She has power in those back legs. Jack knows all about it. I've seen Jenny hit Jack in the ribs, both feet with all she had, and Jack took it like a tree. He didn't show he even felt it. If she'd hit me like she got Jack, I'd have flown at least ten feet through the air like in a cartoon. Jenny is gentle with me such that I don't believe she would kick me with intent, unless I attempted to shovel dirt onto her baby. Swinging her ass-end to me was a warning. We communicate now that I have learned to read their body language, which is their language. I know she would have kicked me if I'd moved toward the grave. It must have made her laugh to see Jack and me jump at the same time. 

donkey jen

It has been a year that Jenny has lived here with Jack. Their first anniversary was spent in sorrow. This experience has shown me the degree of my connection with the donkeys, as people I know, as friends. Jack had lived here two months before Jenny showed up one evening. Jack and I bonded over those eight weeks. We came to know each other. The day he played a trick on me and laughed, I felt we really communicated. He ran at me full-gallop from about fifty feet away, his eyes bearing down on me. Delight glistened in his eyes. I thought: he won't knock me down, but I don't know. Concluded: he either will or he won't. If he does, I'll get up. I believe he will not. I stood still watching him run full-tilt in a straight line. He stopped quick as a polo pony, from running to motionless, his nose two inches from my belly. He gave me a glance with his eye that said, I thought you'd jump. He wanted to make me jump. This is a favorite game I've seen among all the animals I've known. Kittens like to make each other jump. Making somebody jump is the apex of slapstick animal humor. In our early childhood making somebody jump is hilarious. It's funny to be made to jump. Jenny wasn't playing when she spun around on Jack and me, but I know it gave her a laugh to see us jump like we did. I've learned from the animals I've known they have a sense of humor. They must think we humans are without humor. One wants to play and the human only scolds. One of the things animals love about human children is they like to play. We adults talk to them like they can't understand anything. I find them aching to be understood by humans. They're ready to communicate. All they need is for us to pay attention. 

beautiful jen

I can see it in Jenny and Jack that it makes them happy I communicate with them. The day after she lost her baby, I was giving them carrot chunks. While Jenny was chewing I talked to her. I told her I love her, as I do every day. I said to her, "You're my friend," and she fluttered her lips in a particularly equine way. Jack flutters his lips like this when I tell him he is my friend. All the dogs and cats I've known living here have responded to the word friend in a way that shows they know its meaning. I've learned that I can talk to the donkeys in sentences and paragraphs, and they will show me later they understood everything. I spoke my sorrow to Jenny in her mourning, aware that she knew my meaning. She understood. As much as it hurts and as much as I wish it hadn't happened, I like that this experience brought me into their circle. They like it that I share their feeling with them, that I understood Jenny's sorrow, and Jack's. I see the sorrow in Jenny's eyes. They don't seem to show much, yet I see her eyes every day, several times a day. In the first six months of her pregnancy, plus the new space to live in, fenced in with a serial rapist, Jenny's moods were different every day. Carrot time in the mornings, I read Jenny's eyes to see if I needed to be careful with my fingers. Her eyes flashed in those months. Jack moved within kicking range, she'd nail him. I stayed out of the meadow in Jenny's first three months. The months after, I was wary of her. My wariness has gone. I learned the day I stepped between her and Jack when they were beginning a kick-fest, something like stepping into a donkey mosh pit, Jenny would not kick me. She kicked one leg at Jack as I stepped into the scene. Her hoof connected with the side of my upper leg. I did not feel a thing. She withdrew the power from the punch when she saw what she'd done. It barely touched the outer skin of my pants. Not even a touch. She showed a moment of contrition letting her foot down. I told her it was all right, thanked her for not kicking me. 

jenny jenny jenny

This moment taught me she would never kick me with intent, unless I might provoke her. Jenny is not one to provoke. In Jack's humble nature I see how a donkey makes a good beast of burden, so willing to help a human, valuing friendship with a human. Donkeys have good minds. In Jenny's nature, I understand the statistic I heard on NPR not many years ago, around the globe more people are killed by donkeys per year than die in plane crashes. Jenny and Jack are like yin-yang of donkey nature. Since Jenny fell in love with Jack after living with him six months, she gave Alpha role to Jack and became a quiet, humble donkey, to a point. Her eyes have have had a stillness in them the last several months. I am able to see the sorrow in Jenny's eyes since she lost her baby. I call her Beautiful Jen when talking to her. Today, the third day, she allowed me to drag her baby to the grave and cover it with dirt. I covered the body with a flannel sheet the second day. Jenny removed the sheet in the night. She seemed less interested today. I busied myself in the meadow filling up two five-gallon buckets with droppings for a rhododendron. I put down some sweet grain for Jenny and some for Jack, two donkey lengths between servings. Her ears go back when she's eating grain, meaning everybody stay back. I rolled the baby onto the sheet, dragged it to the grave and lowered it, wrapped it in the sheet and shoveled the dirt into the hole fast as I could go. Jenny saw what I was doing and allowed it. At sunset I looked into the meadow for Jenny. She was lying on her side, head up in guardian mode, next to the spot the baby had been. I've an idea she will be partial to that spot for some time, maybe years.  

donkey jack

jack a-lookin atcha

*

DONKEY JENNY LOSES HER BABY

I don't want to write tonight, but it is the only thing I'm able to do. I'm so mired down in grief I can't sleep, can't read, can't watch a movie, can't listen to music. Donkey Jenny surprised me delivering her baby today. She lay down in some wet mud with water running through it. Animals go to water when they have pain. I supposed she went to the wet mud in some kind of pain, maybe. I found the baby not long after. I saw Jenny focused in that direction, looked and thought I saw a dead coyote she must have killed. I saw the stripe on its shoulder, donkey. It had mud on its hooves and I saw its hoof prints in the mud. Evidently, it could not stand up in the mud, slid down and its head went in water and it must have either suffocated or drowned. A little girl with long curly hair like Jenny's. Jenny's nose pushed her to get up, over and over. Jenny was in deep mourning. Jack was too. I walked into the scene and I fell into mourning. It tore me up. Intense grief, please get up, knowing it was not possible, wanting to go back and do it again with me present to help, not possible. Jenny let me put my arms around her neck and hold her as we wept together. I held Jack and mourned with him too. Both donkeys were like me, didn't know what to do. Jack stood around close by Jenny, watching her nudge the baby, feeling her sorrow as his own. I stood with them and watched Jenny until I felt it was time to do something. It was mine to dig the hole, mine to bury the baby. Where? I wanted to put it in the donkey meadow where it belongs. I chose a spot out from the dogwood tree, between two trails, a place some ironweed grew that the donkeys did not eat. 

I dug the hole weeping, hating digging the grave for Jenny's baby, already named Sherpa, Jack watching what I was doing, sniffing the dirt pile, while Jenny pushed and pushed her baby with her nose, using her front hoof to make the baby move. I couldn't stand it that Jenny lost her first baby. One of those times when the heart has more to deal with than it can bear. I wanted to leave the body, myself, to get out of the pain. But I couldn't abandon Jenny and Jack in their most vulnerable time. I dug the hole remembering other graves I've dug, this one the size of dogs I've put in the ground. Digging a grave for a beloved is unbearable, but I force my way through it. It is mine to do, no one else's. Mine, for love and respect. And, of course, I questioned why God abandoned me. I looked for ways to blame myself and found several. Should-have is too late. Jenny birthed exactly one year after she arrived here with Jack. I thought it was some time later that Jack conquered her, but he must have found penetration in their first night. Just now heard a pack of coyotes yelling from the donkey meadow. I jumped and ran to the door, hollering, GIT, several times. They dispersed. I threw on a sweatshirt, went out with a flashlight in bright full moon. Jack met me at the gate. He'd been in the shed. I saw eyes glowing by the grave. Jenny came walking to me. She was in high guardian mode. I was careful with her. She wanted to smell me all over to be sure it was her friend. I told her over and over, crying, I was sorry she'd lost her baby, sorry I couldn't bring baby back. She walked warily with me to the grave. I thought I might want to cover the baby with dirt to protect it from the coyotes. Closer to the grave, Jenny became aggressive, telling both me and Jack to stay back. 

Her eyes, when I saw them with the flashlight, were close to the ground like she was lying down, guarding her baby through the night. She walked back to the grave, satisfied I understood to stay away. The coyotes will be drawn to the scent all night, I'm certain. Jenny knows it too. Not even a pack of them will get past her. I'm not afraid for her, except I don't like them terrorizing her, circling her, yipping like they do around her. It's a creepy enough sound from a distance. It must be awful to have them all around taunting, threatening. They know from experience Jenny will hurt them. She's safe and her baby is safe through the night. I doubt she will let me fill in the dirt until after baby's scent changes. I remember my great great grandpa who shot himself in the barn lot, age 74. The story is that his dog, evidently a Plott hound, would not let anyone near the body for three days and nights. I assume his scent changed and the dog was hungry. His scent gone, no reason go hungry any longer. My feeling this is what Jenny is doing, staying with her baby until the scent is gone. I will proceed according to Jenny's will. I will wait until she takes no more interest. She will let me cover the body when the scent changes. I longed so to know Jenny's baby, see her and baby together playing. I wanted the joy of a little donkey hopping about, another donkey to fall in love with, And we were delivered sorrow. I wanted to see Jack loving his little baby doll. In the meadow, after Jenny returned to the grave, Jack was standing beside me. I leaned down, the side of my face on his neck near his ears, and wept, cried and cried holding Jack, him still, feeling that I was feeling what he was feeling.

This is the deepest connection I've had yet with Jack and Jenny. The three of us cried together in the light of the full November moon. I had been to visit the grave of my friend Jr Maxwell, who left the body on this full moon five years ago. Driving down the road coming home, I saw Jenny and Jack both lying on the ground. I took it for sunning on a fifty degree day. I went to take them some hay. I saw Jenny fixed on a spot like something was there. I looked and saw what I took for a dead coyote, thinking Jenny might have killed it in the night. I stepped closer and saw the Bethlehem cross line on its shoulder and knew it was not a coyote. After placing the baby in the grave and learning Jenny was not going to allow me to cover it with dirt, I came back to the house. Went to bed wanting to sleep, but just cried. Got up, held Caterpillar awhile. Unable to do anything, I decided to shower. Made the water good and hot, stood in the water bawling, moaning, wanting to let loose and wail, though it didn't go past moaning out loud like singing in the shower. Turns out the shower is a good place to cry. I let it go until there were no more tears to fall. I felt so sad for Jenny my sorrow never let up. I lost a new friend before we met. I hated carrying the body to the grave and placing it in the hole as though putting it to bed for the night. Jenny stepped into the grave with her front feet, nudging the body with a hoof to move, with her nose, sometimes in seeming desperation. I could not take pictures of the baby, but got a couple of Jenny standing in the grave. It was all I wanted, a picture of Jenny's sorrow to remember the day I learned again how deeply the four-leggeds feel. 

*

THEY CALL IT THE TOP OF THE WORLD

mt everest

Watched a documentary yesterday, EVEREST: 50 YEARS, a National Geographic film. The camera followed a climb by the sons of Edmund Hillary and Tensing Norgay, the first people to reach the top of the world's highest mountain, 29,029 feet above sea level, by one measurement. Another says 29,035 and another 29,028. Close to six miles up in the air. That's where passenger jets fly. To the local people of Nepal, Everest is the mother goddess of the world. Their name for the mountain is Sagarmatha. The Tibetan name is Chomolunga. In that part of the world, it is a sacred mountain. I appreciated the emphasis on the lives of the Sherpas who carry supplies in to the base camp and accompany climbers. I've seen several documentaries of Himalayan mountain climbing expeditions and have read a few accounts of climbers. I enjoy reading a climber's account of the ascent. None of the ones I've seen have paid much attention to the Sherpas but as beasts of burden. In this film, they go into the homes of a few of the Sherpas to meet their wives, mothers, family. The women spoke of their apprehension over their men climbing the mountain. Several have died. It's good paying work for money to get by on where money is scarce. Talking with different Sherpas along the way gave a sense of them as conscious, thinking human beings. I used to think Sherpa was the name of the occupation. Sherpa is the name of their tribe. Several tribes live through the mountains there. It just happens that the Sherpa tribe is in that territory. Others from different tribes are among the Sherpas in a climb. It is work that pays so well the men turn up in a big crowd to be chosen from. Edmund Hillary took an interest in the local population. Over a period of years he provided a large number of hospitals and schools. He provided them with foundational necessities they had little to no access to. 

mt everest / chomolunga / sagarmatha

Hillary's son, Edmund Jr, planned the climb with son of Tensing Norgay to scale the mountain on the fiftieth anniversary of the first to reach the summit. The chances of reaching the summit once a team sets out are slim. Weather on the mountain changes instantly and by surprise. Sometimes climbers have been caught in a blizzard with hurricane wind for a couple weeks at a time, stuffed into sleeping bags and the tent walls flapping like a flag about to rip from its pole. I've read that when climbers get trapped in their tents for a week or two, they never want to see each other the rest of their lives. They come out of it despising each other. Fortunately for the National Geographic project, the weather allowed the team to make it to the top. A time came when they were close they believed they would have to turn around and descend. One of the Sherpas was heartbroken. This would be his last chance in his life to go with an expedition to the summit. He broke down when the decision was made to turn back. He quit. He walked to base camp with intent to go home. He said, "I hate God." He was furious with God. It was his only chance and he wanted with all he had to make it to the top. His fury settled after a few hours, the storm settled and the team called him back. He went on and was one happy Sherpa at the top. The guide, Peter Athans, said he made five attempts before he was able to climb all the way to the summit. Hearing Athans talk about his experiences with the mountain that he knew intimately was one of the many dimensions of the mountain the film covered. Sherpas talked about the difference between the way they see the mountain and the how the climbers see it. The Sherpas are in the literal lap of the mother goddess. For them, the mountain is the holy of holies. They are in awe when they are on the mountain. They say the climbers call it a challenge, a struggle, a fight, though the Sherpas are at peace in the lap of the Mother.

a climbing route up mt everest

Edmund Hillary Jr appeared to be at peace with the mountain too. He grew up and spent his life with his dad working with the Sherpa people of the region. He knew and appreciated the Sherpa people as people with lives. I have to say that before this film, the Sherpas were faceless to me, like Japanese pilots in WW2 movies. I never saw them in the films in any way but carrying heavy packs on their backs like donkeys. White people all over the world tend not to take people of any color seriously as valid human beings. That's just the arrogance of whiteness, which we white people have in abundance. I saw that neither father nor son Hillary showed a trace of the arrogance of whiteness. They were privileged and used their privilege to help the Sherpa people. Edmund Sr climbed to the top with his Sherpa partner. Neither one has ever told which one set foot on the summit first. Hillary's attitude was they climbed the mountain together and they reached the summit together. He saw to it the white press gave Tensing Norgay equal attention for making it to the top. I don't know it, but would guess the two Edmunds know the language too. The documentary following the climbers, the scenes on the mountain, made a good film in themselves, but I felt like including the Sherpas like Hillary did made it all the more interesting. Seeing the people in their world talking about their lives added a great deal to the film for me. They seem like they are living the way people lived here in these mountains before electricity, a simple community of people who have lived there and among each other all their lives for many generations. Here, it's looked back on as the golden age, though nobody would give up tv, recliners and flushing toilets to go back, or move to Kathmandu. 

climbing up the mountain

Every time the camera focused on the Sherpa people, I was there, looking at true humanity in their faces, eyes and body language, from a golden age in our distant past in the western world. It would have to be all the way back to medieval times. Their religion, a form of Buddhism close to Tibetan, is clearly a religion of inner peace. I believe this is what makes them "inscrutable" Asians to us. The people of the Buddhist world value inner peace and stillness, which have no value in the Christian world, but in hymns. I was thinking I could learn something valuable living among the Sherpa people for 35 years. They surely have satellite televisions for ones who can afford them to watch soccer games, football there. I think it kind of follows that where you have a high concentration of people of faithful leanings, you have the opposite too, thugs, gangsters, bandits, thieves. The whole spectrum would be there. I wonder if places  high in spiritual vibration that draw the faithful would also draw all the different colors of the human character. I was guessing among the Sherpas that carrying a pack on a mountain climbing expedition was a macho thing for a man. It made him a good provider for his family. Much status in their village or town. On another level, these are the men who have been in the lap of the Mother, a high spiritual place to be. I had the impression that the climb for the Sherpas tended to be a meditation, what we call here a spiritual retreat. The Sherpas work together, camp together, pray together, support each other like family. They harken Prozac Nation to a gentler time of close-knit, tribal community that goes back for centuries where people really knew each other and lived their lives together. It reminded me about regarding my mountain sacred. Maybe I could hang some prayer flags about. 

prayer flags at the summit

*

DONKEY BABY ANNOUNCEMENT

donkey jack

I took some carrots into the meadow for the donkeys. They were at the far end of the meadow. Instead of calling them, I walked to them. Jack saw me first and came running. Most often he will start walking tentatively, stop about fifty feet away, run up to about ten feet from me and walk the rest of the way. That's his pattern. This time, he saw me from quite a distance, maybe fifty yards, and ran all the way, ran right up to my hand with the carrot. Jenny came casually walking, no big hurry. She walked out around Jack. He swung his rear end around at her with a grunt in a serious way. I'd never seen Jack so jealous. Jenny stepped back and I extended my arm to her with carrot. Jack didn't like it. They both moved around me, not like I was the center of attention, but I was in the way. Jenny came to me for a second carrot and Jack bolted into gallop and ran between us, pushing Jenny back and hitting me fairly hard. I know I was not his target, just collateral damage (no problem). He didn't come close to knocking me down, but hit rougher than he has ever been with me. He knocked her back away from me and me back from her. He was serious too. No laugh was associated with this trick. I let out a yelp that didn't slow Jack down. He did not intend to hit me, but as I've found before, when they go at each other, their focus of attention is like they have blinders for anything in the way. It's up to me to get out of their way when they get antsy. He hit me with his left front shoulder and it was hard. I realized again what a powerful beast Jack is. He knew me physically well enough to know he was not overwhelming me. He knows I can't take a forceful bump like a donkey can. He also knows I can to a point, and he knows the point. I felt his weight and his power, and that only peripherally. It was Jenny he hit. I just happened to be in the way. I wasn't afraid. They started dancing around each other and I said, "Bye, y'all. I'm going back to my barn." When I turned to walk away, they settled down.

jenny and jack munch jewelweed treats

 

I'm getting the impression from morning carrot time that Jack is becoming more forceful in his role as Alpha. At the fence, he will swing his ass end around at Jenny to push her away from me. This is what Jenny did when she was Alpha. Jack was slow to become aggressive as Alpha, but he's getting there. I'm not worried about him. It's just interesting behavior. I'd trust my life to Jack. I'm not worried about him turning on me. Their antsiness happens when I'm around; it's one of them pushing the other to have carrots all to self. Possibly Jenny passed her jealousy to Jack with the Alpha. This was the first time I saw Jack show jealousy with aggression. Mostly, he swings his rear end toward her and makes a sighing groan. Today it was a buffalo grunt and a show of power. He didn't kick at her, though he would have if she hadn't backed out of range. I actually like being in so close to them when they start dancing and kicking. I feel safe. One or both might step on my foot, kick me intending to hit the other, or knock me down. I don't care. I had a brief interior laugh when Jack went into action and Jenny went into defensive action. They were so big, so heavy, so powerful, wild, dynamic, snorting. Handing them carrots is one thing. Standing defenseless in the meadow, two voluminous equines hopping around me, going at each other with me in the middle, can get a little unnerving really fast. Fortunately, I don't have fear of them kicking me or fear of a kick hurting if one does kick. I have no fear of them because I know neither one has an intent to hurt me. Collateral damage is another story. That's called shit happens. An accidental kick would not be anything like a kick with intent behind it. I feel like I've gone into a new zone in relation to the donkeys. I saw earlier today that I no longer have any fear or apprehension of them. They start acting up, I know it's not about me, except that it is totally about me, and I step out of the way while they dance around each other, feign biting and kicking, ears back, bump, snort, push.

 

big mama jenny munches morning carrot

 

I'm thinking with fair confidence that Jenny is, indeed, pregnant. Talking Sunday with my friend Pat, who has donkeys, Mongolian horses and goats. She talked about them at length, at my prompting. I was wanting to hear what she had to say about donkeys. She noted that the donkeys fill out through the winter eating hay. They lose weight this time of year; the big barrel shrinks. Jack has thinned a bit since winter. Jenny has not. Jenny gets bigger. I was wondering if she was just getting fat. No, she'd be thinner now than in winter. I noticed her belly has grown considerably and has a slight lump in it. She likes it when I run the brush over her belly hair. Reaching down under her belly is quite a stretch. I told Pat that Jenny has had a very peaceful air the last month and a half or two months. She quieted down after she gave Alpha to Jack. She was so unpredictable for two to three months, I would read her temperament each morning at carrot time, see what kind of mood Jenny was in. Some days she'd be aggressive and feisty, take the carrot touching my fingers with her teeth, just to let me know she can. Other days she would take the carrot with her lips or her teeth and not come near my fingers. Some days she was fiercely aggressive with Jack and other days only mildly aggressive. She was always aggressive toward him in some manner. However, this was only when the ice cream man was with them. They get jealous over the carrots as metaphors of my attention, or something. All the women I talked with about Jenny's behavior told me she was pregnant. I've believed she was, but it didn't show. This calm spell is a part of the pregnancy, too. If she conceived when I suspect, it would have been February. Donkeys carry for a year. This is looking at cold, hard winter. Though it may have been later, explaining why it has taken so long to show. I'm guessing it will be February or March when Jenny has her baby. Pat said she started with two donkeys and the herd grew to seven. She said the baby donkeys are cute beyond cute. She said I will fall in love with the baby. They start playing a short time after they're born. She fell in love with all of hers and could not let them go. 

 

jack's ears

 

I've already named the baby. Male or female, it will be Sherpa. It is sherpas that act as human donkeys to carry supplies for Himalayan climbers. I like the word, and like it for a name. A sherpa is a humble man, a Buddhist. A donkey is humble. Humility is the first characteristic I noted getting acquainted with Jack. Jenny was so out of sorts it was awhile finding humility in her. During her first six months, she was in grief, in shock, outraged, and aggressively defensive. By now, she's at home, she's with her man, she has her own personal autonomy, the freedom to be fully herself. She's safe in a meadow surrounded by barbed wire to keep everything out. Anything the fence cannot keep out, donkey can. I learned Sunday soon after talking with Pat on the phone that next door neighbor's dog is suddenly blind in left eye. He believes she (Jolene) was donkey kicked. I thought she knew to stay out of the donkey meadow by now. I've seen Jolene go out of her way not to cross the donkey meadow. Months ago when Jenny was new, I saw Jolene and Martha get run out of the meadow. As soon as a donkey sees a dog in the meadow, both donkeys take off in a bee-line gallop toward the dog. Dogs dive under the fence. Martha, Jolene's sister, will lie on the ground just this side of the fence and watch the donkeys. She wants with all her might to cross the line and go into the meadow with the donkeys. She dares not. All I can figure with Jolene is she, too, has a constant urge to want to be in with the donkeys, chase them and make them run. If she came within kicking range of one of the donkeys, she did get kicked. I can't imagine her getting close enough to one of the donkeys this long, eight months after she has learned to leave the donkeys alone, definitively. Dogs are learners, and I know Jolene has a good mind; she's a good hunter, fast and smart. I also know of Jolene that she's impulsive. She will know not to do something and do it anyway. Her impulsiveness is the only way I can see her getting close enough to a donkey for a head kick. She learned at least seven months ago to stay out of the donkey meadow. I'm thinking the likelihood of a human hitting her with a stick or a rock is more likely than a donkey kick. If she did go after a donkey after knowing not to for so long, she needed a kick in the head. The only way she could get close enough to be kicked would be to sneak up on one, and that's not possible. All I can make of it is something besides donkey hurt the dog. If it was donkey, the dog knew it was taking on a buzz-saw. Like Mama Gump said, Stupid is as stupid does. Another mystery never to be solved.    

 

jenny scratches her neck on the fence wire

 

 

*

 

 

SNOW ON DONKEY EARS

 

jenny's icicles

 

It's a foot of snow outside. Walking in it, it doesn't feel like it's an inch deep. The snow is dry and powdery. It offers no resistance. It's a beautiful, pure snow. I don't go out in it except to feed the donkeys and the birds. The snow was not the problem outdoors. It's the cold that bites. I button my jacket at the neck and still the snow finds a way to crawl down the back of my neck. My first impulse seeing the icicles over Jenny's eyes was to break them off, but I knew she would not like me reaching my hand toward her eye. She wouldn't like that at all. She didn't seem to be bothered by them, so I left them alone. We humans are fussy. The animals are not. I didn't get the impression that Jenny minded having a minor glacier between her eyes. I took hay to them twice. Didn't want the portion they couldn't eat right away to be snowed on all day. Took more carrots to Jenny the second time. She's become so jealous of the carrots that she pushes Jack away from me and the calf knows by now to stay away from Jenny at carrot time. I don't know what to do to teach her sharing, so I don't do anything. It's their natures that they understand better than I do. I don't want to train them to human ways of thinking. So Jenny has become the carrot hog. I make it a point to hand carrot to Jack over to the side away from Jenny. I throw one to the calf, but today with a foot of snow, the carrot would have gone to the bottom of the snow and the calf would not have found it. Jenny's mood this morning was gentle. I had the feeling she was too cold to act up. Jack was the usual Jack. He's easy going with reggae playing in ear plugs, going along with few necessities, a good-natured donkey all the time. Jack's humility is remarkable. 

 

jenny's whiskers



 

I took camera on the afternoon feeding run and walked around behind the house to get some pictures of the creek that runs through here, Spring Lizard Creek, with the rocks in it piled high with snow. In front around the birdfeeders, snowbirds were hopping about looking for something to eat. I took two big paper cups of sunflower seeds and threw one in the direction of one birdfeeder and the other at the other feeder. Thirty or so snowbirds were out there. The birdfeeder serves one at a time. On days like today when the birds are desperately hungry, I spread the seeds over the ground so they can all eat at once. The birds, too, have their comical interactive behavior. Jack had been having a drink of water when I went out this morning. It was one of those moments that I regretted not having the camera set on video and ready. He came running and the snow flying in small clouds from his hooves, and him braying. He was on me before I could even lift the camera to start pushing buttons. I let the thinking about the camera go, and watched him bray while he ran in the snow. It was too beautiful not to watch. He came up to me braying, his pink tongue flat in his mouth. Jenny let out some squeals meant to be brays. I don't think Jenny gets it yet that a bray takes a full physical commitment. It's not just mouth and throat. It is the whole body. Jack looks like he's in a trance when he brays. He has to twist is neck just right. Once the bray starts, it's like it takes a life of its own and won't set him free until he sang every verse. She'll figure it out. I'm more convinced daily that Jenny is pregnant. The baby already has its name, Sherpa. Jenny keeps her ears back while she's eating, very jealous about her food. But that's only at the beginning. Later, after everybody's hunger from the night is satisfied and they're munching because that's what they do, Jenny shows no jealousy.

 

jenny, calf and jack

  

Jack has his ears back in this picture, though it's because the calf's head and ears are so close he doesn't want them touching. Jenny's left ear she holds back tight to keep from connecting with the calf's ear, again, not wanting to touch. I see more and more subtle behavior the closer I study donkeys. I mourn for all the donkeys down through time that have been hit and yelled at because humans didn't have what it took to notice they are sentient beings. I'm sure, however, that many people who dealt with donkeys learned their ways and appreciated them. Not all men are cement heads, but enough are that a cement headed nature appears to be a side-effect of testosterone poisoning. It pains me to see guys of my generation become cement heads in their later years. I've felt the cultural tug to go that direction, but refuse to go. I will not do that. It's my inspiration for going to rock concerts in my later years and mixing with hundreds of "the kids these days," to keep myself reminded that old-man thinking is bullshit. It's cultural. It's not natural. Like racism, it's learned. I stay out of that mind. Its easy to generalize about the kids these days; television, computers, cell phones, facebook, twitter, google. Seen from the inside, it's quite another story. I know several kids these days. A couple of them got PhDs from Berkeley. I couldn't even fantasize being accepted at Berkeley. And one of them I've known since she was a baby. The kids these days I know, a fairly random sampling, are brilliant people, conscientious people, given a few exceptions. Also, none of the kids these days I know suffer from Affluenza. They're only different from the kids of my days because the culture today is different from what it was then. School isn't much different, but everything else is. Our politicians don't support education because an educated public costs more to manipulate. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina relies on ignorance. He's not going to do anything for education, like the other remote-control robots.

 

frosty donkey jack

 

A Rolling Stones song is in my head, Beast of Burden. I took a break and went to YouTube to review the words. They're funny. It is Jack's song to Jenny. He's had enough, and he is spilling to her his issues; Am I not hard enough, am I not tough enough, am I not rich enough? In the song, he's frustrated because nothing he does can please his woman. Mick Jagger writes a song of simple lyrics, though they have their something special that makes them Rolling Stones songs. Beast of Burden is simple, simple lyrics, but they tell a living story. Tumbling Dice, Brown Sugar, Wild Horses. Jack is Jenny's beast of burden. I'd better not tell him. He knows it too well. I suppose this is Jack's fate to have a woman he can never be good enough for. I don't believe it will always be that way. She keeps her ears back much of the time when he's nearby. It's her body language for, Don't do what you're thinking. Jack says, What am I thinking? I didn't think nothin Baby. Jenny says, I know you better than you think I do. Jack, at the same time, is Mr Cool. He knows he's Mr Cool and it doesn't rock his self-esteem at all that Jenny doesn't get it. He'd just like her to settle down and let him hump her all the time. Since she won't let him do that, he hangs around close enough to smell her. She likes having him around, though it would be better if he could let her rest. Yet, she likes the attention. Over a period of time they'll fall in tune with each other's rhythms and flow together. She would not be his pick, and he would not be her pick. But they're beasts of burden. They're subject to the luck of the draw. Seems like they're flowing together very well by now. Jack is not as demanding as he once was, and Jenny is not as aloof to him now as she used to be. Where one is, the other is close by.     

    

 

jenny says

she's satisfied with jack

 

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