ALARM IN THE DONKEY MEADOW

jenny

The donkeys were spooked this morning for one or more reasons I've been looking at in my head all day. I saw out the window they were quite a ways out into the meadow, looking the other way. Thought I'd put seeds in the birdfeeder first. Usually, when I step out the door Jack brays and starts a slow run to the gate to greet the ice cream man with morning carrots. This morning they didn't even look. I came back into the house, picked up three carrots for them and went back out the door. They stood out there and looked at me the way they look at somebody they've never seen before who walks into the meadow with me. I called to them by name. No response. They continued to look like they were wondering if they might do best to run the other way. I called Donkey Jack. No response. I held carrots up. Nothing. Jack eventually started walking toward me in a half circle, a very round about way, wary, looking, unsure. In the second part of the half circle he appeared to recognize me, but wasn't completely certain. He approached me warily, I held the piece of carrot to him, he took it with his lips and, for the first time, he seemed to recognize me. He smiled all over. Jenny came walking for her carrot after seeing Jack take the first plunge into the unknown. Jenny took her carrot, Jack wanted another and Jenny swung her head at him, he stepped back, I reached over to give the carrot to Jack, he took it and Jenny lunged at him again. She wanted another. She was sweet as pie with me. The calf came up from behind. I knew as well as the calf did that Jenny wasn't allowing it close enough for a carrot, so I tossed a chunk over Jenny's back to the ground in front of the calf. I gave Jenny and Jack the remaining couple of chunks.

 

jack

 

I unfastened the gate and carried the day's armload of hay into the meadow, Jenny on my left, Jack on my right. Today Jenny was not so much interested in snatching a swatch of hay to chew on following the ice cream man into the meadow. She wanted to keep Jack and the calf away from me. She didn't want them getting any of it. I walked out into the meadow with Jenny not far behind, actively keeping Jack and the calf behind her away from the ice cream man. The calf started a hop around dance, running and jumping, kicking backwards into the air like a donkey, calf gamboling. The calf doesn't have the quick mind of a donkey. When it gets excited like that, I watch out. It isn't as aware of its feet or its head as the donkeys are. I can trust them hopping around like that, but not the calf. I came straight to me, head down, dancing on the verge of out of control. I put the palm of my hand out and it stopped. Jenny darted at it and the calf jerked away and ran about twenty feet, turned and watched us, waiting for hay. Jenny and Jack are most demanding, not demanding of me, but demanding of the calf to remember, donkeys first, so I put their hay down first. It's nature rooted deeper than I can do anything about but observe their natural law.  Jack started pushing me sideways. I have learned this is his signal asking me to pet him. I ran my hand over his back and his rump, down his back legs, back to his back and his neck. Enough is enough. Not too much. I went off a ways and put some hay down for the calf and called to it, C'mon calf. Here it came running. It started grazing, Jenny left her hay and ran the calf off. I put the rest of the hay down someplace else for the calf, away from the donkeys. Jenny ran Jack away from his hay and he went to the hay she left. They go around like this first thing every day, but today had more aggression in it from everybody. It seemed like a nervous aggression. In a short time, Jenny and the calf were grazing from the same mound of hay, or Jenny and Jack were grazing together. It's only that first part that set's Jenny's jealousy into motion.

 

jenny

 

I noticed that a corner of the mineral block had been broken off. The donkeys chewed corners off it when I first put it in with them. As soon as they had the balance they needed they went to licking it daily and no more chewing. Every day they take their moment licking it. This was a big chunk broken off, and it's not on the ground. I've thought about coyotes in the night, but my ears are tuned to their shrill yipping such that I wake as soon as I hear it. I didn't wake, which tells me I may have slept through a coyote attack, but don't feel like that was it. Next thought was a bear. Just outside the upper gate a bear marks the road at a place where it can see a good landscape 180 degrees. It looks over the whole meadow. I have no doubt the bear has been in the meadow. This is its territory. I saw foot tracks in the snow last time it snowed that went down by the barn and back into the woods. The chunk missing from the mineral block, I can't help but think something with powerful jaws and a powerful need was chewing on it, licking not enough. I'm guessing that knowing the block is here, the bear will be back, if it was indeed a bear. I doubt bear and donkeys had a confrontation. The donkeys probably went to the far end of the field and the calf probably shuddered in the shed. Jack and Jenny are not confrontational with intruders, or so I believe I've observed. I'm guessing the bear will be back periodically and the donkeys will get used to it. They will stay away from the bear, the bear will not bother them and a peace will go between them. I don't mind the bear licking the mineral block. I imagine the deer have found it by now and lick on it at night when they dare to graze out in the open. The chunk chewed off the block is much bigger than the chunks Jack and Jenny chewed in the beginning. I may move the mineral block farther out into the meadow so four-leggeds passing through can have a lick without terrorizing the donkeys a little too close to their shed.

 

jenny with jack on her mind

 

I've convinced myself to satisfaction that it was very likely a bear. This may have been its first time in the meadow. I don't know anything about the night activities of the four-leggeds, except for the night pictures taken by a trail camera strapped to a tree in the woods across the road. The four-leggeds are as active as a shopping center in the woods at night. Coyotes, coywolves, bear, coons galore, squirrels. A friend wanted to put calves in the meadow, so I put two donkeys in, because the cattle farmers are now keeping a donkey or two with a herd of cattle to keep the coyotes away. I've only heard them in here once since Jenny has been in the meadow. My feeling is that Jenny being the Alpha donkey and having her streak of jealousy, she'll become possessive of the meadow in some way or another. She knows the night rhythms of the meadow as well as she knows the day. I sit here and stare out the window at the mineral block's missing corner, noting something big with a powerful need chewed off that much of it. It seems like the chunk would be about the size of a hard baseball. At the end of a long sleep, it more than likely needed a good bit of salt. I would imagine a bear crossing the far end of the meadow, but one coming up to about thirty feet from the gate and the donkey shelter would be penetrating a bit too far into donkey home territory for comfort. Chewing on their block must have disturbed them at least a little. The bear probably did take a leisurely walk around, smelling, surveying the land up close the bear knew from the road. It more than likely did not leave the meadow same way it arrived, it took its time, looking and sniffing, seeing if any new scents could be found. This is about as close as I'm going to get attempting to uncover why the donkeys and calf were so spooked. They are different every day, though this is the first time I've seen them like they were today.
 

jack

 

 

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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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AS THE SNOW DEEPENS

night snow

Snow is falling steadily in small flakes, has been for several hours. I'd venture four inches by now. Not going outside to measure it. Going by how it looks out the window, how high the snow is piled on top of the bird feeders. I feel for my donkey friends and the calf. The snow is coming out of the east, or anyway the wind carrying it is coming out of the east, flowing into the donkey shelter. It looks like the temperature is somewhere between fifteen and twenty. I'd like to be able to give my friends a place out of the cold, the wind and the snow, but it can't be done. They have to take it like a beast. Jenny has been in moods lately, makes me wonder what she'll be like in the morning going out into the snow. I'll give them hay close to the fence where they are not so exposed. It's a cove of three trees along there and the wind current that runs through the meadow doesn't include this corner of the meadow. The three of them are doing whatever they are doing. They might be taking turns through the night to be the one with the back to the cold. Yesterday I saw the calf licking Jack behind an ear and then licked Jack's neck. Jack stood and let the calf do its licking. I saw the calf and Jenny eating from the same small mound of hay, their noses a few inches apart. I've seen the calf munching like that with Jack, too. They have become friends to the calf. Jenny has brought the calf to life. Now that it is lively she has to teach it to stay out of her space. The calf is catching on. It stays back at carrot time. Jenny won't let it approach me for a carrot, so I toss a piece to the calf. When the calf became conscious, it had to start learning the rules. It is in learning process now. I see every day its uncertainty about the rules in a given situation. When it's caught on to the donkey rules, it will be at home and comfortable. I'm catching on that the calf has learned to kick backwards from the donkeys and I stay away from the calf's backside.

 

shadow on snow

 

The birds will be anxious for seeds in the morning. The squirrels and chipmunks will hole up and maybe snack from a midden somewhere close to where they nest. If the snow continues all night, we will have appreciable accumulation by morning. Snowed in. One thing I love about being snowed in is my mind relaxes its ongoing mantra, I GOTTA. I don't gotta nothin. If it can't be done inside the house or within easy walking of the house, it's not getting done. It is a fine powdery snow. I've been told it was really a slick snow. Justin was driving on Glade Valley Road when it was maybe a quarter inch on the road. He said when he was at a place where he had some room, he stomped it to see what would happen, a big pickup. It spun in a 360 and he kept on down the road to home. He loves driving in ice and snow. For him, that spin was the hillbilly equivalent of doing a 360 in the air on a snowboard. On a snowboard would be cool, but he thinks it's a whole lot cooler in a truck. He likes to go out after a good snow before the back roads have been cleared and nobody is out driving. He practices high speed driving at slow speeds in the snow, drifting slowly around a tight curve. It's driving practice for him. He is in full control when he is spinning in the road. He is in full control at all times behind the wheel. I feel safe when he is driving, safer than when I'm driving. Going by what he said about the snow being especially slick, I see these tiny flakes ice crystals showering down. The state's present remote-control republican government has cut funding for everything having to do with the people, and giving tax breaks to big corporations. Snow plows have not been by and won't be for a few days. Budget for the state road crews has been slashed to give the major corporations what they want, which trickles down into the politician's bank account.

 

the new round bale

 

A freak out is coursing through facebook dreading the snow. Mark the calendar, nIne months from today, a baby boom will occur in the South. Mid November. Thousands of kids with the same birthdays. The lumps on the ground out the windows are levelling out. It's like a sandstorm passed through and left sand everywhere, white sand. In the morning it will be big white desert everywhere with trees and fence posts sticking up. I can't help but think the fracking that is fracturing the crust of the North American continent is making desert. Texas will be the first place to go to desert as it's so close anyway. China advanced desert into the grasslands of Inner Mongolia by destroying the grasslands, attempting mass agriculture. Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas will turn to desert next . The Appalachian chain will no longer be the water source it once was. Springs have been drying up steadily over a period of several years. Fracking is fracturing all the Appalachian chain. If you'll look at maps, you'll see rivers start in the mountains all over the world. America's rivers are being dried up at their source. Another century and the Mississippi river basin could be an arroyo. The damage has already been done and there is no reversing it. White man came through, superior to all other races in his own mind, and turned a continent that was a cornucopia of plenty into desert in just a few hundred years. White man is not a good steward. American individualism degenerated in a hurry to self-serving narcissism. Altruism isn't even an alternative. It went poof, like irony.  

 

more snow

 

The snow outside is piling up. It is almost level with just a few humps that a few more inches will level. I'm recalling a year with sixteen inches of snow, electrical and telephone lines out. Neighbor Tom Pruitt walked down the road with a cane in snow up to his knees. He came to the door and asked me to walk up to the barn and put some hay out for the cows. In the meadow I found a newborn calf, born on the snow. I knew I had to do something, but did not know what to do. I decided to pick the calf up off the snow and carry it to the barn, put it down on some hay and let mama take care of it in the barn. Mama would not follow me. I carried the calf to the barn. I carried it back to mama to give her a sniff of it and asked her to follow. She didn't. I put the calf down in the barn, took hay out for the cows and made a nest of hay on the place where the calf was born, carried it back from the barn to the hay nest. The calf was light picking it up at first, but carrying it back and forth it grew heavier and heavier until I was glad to be done with it. I did not feel that anything I did was sufficient to the need of the moment. At the same time, I could not find anything else I could do. Couldn't get there with the truck. Roads not even graded yet. The calf made it. That done, I walked up to Tom's to tell him what I'd found and how I took care of it. I wanted him to know right away in case he could tell me something I could do that I had not thought of. Nothing to do. I sat down by his fire and we talked awhile, him telling me something from his experience that the calf born in the snow brought to mind. I went to the door to look outside to see if snow was falling. It had stopped, but wind was blowing snow off the roof suggesting it was snowing. I saw how easily that snow blew and my mind's eye saw big drifts all over the roads as soon as a wind comes along. It's a beautiful snow. It will be easy to walk in, powdery and dry. Maybe it won't be so hateful for the donkeys, a fluffy snow that offers little to no resistance to the feet.    

 

jack and jenny before the snow

 

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