JEALOUS DONKEY

jenny turns on jack

 

Last night I stayed up til after 4, and woke around 9:30. I did not see the donkeys when I looked out the window. They were in the shed staying out of the thirty degree bold wind. I didn't feel like setting self into motion yet. Made some coffee, called Carole and we talked  until we wore out. The donkeys started grazing. I went out and put seed in the bird feeders. Donkeys saw me and both set to braying. Jenny made her loudest attempt yet. She's getting close. I'd waited until about 11. I went to them, gave a chunk of carrot to Jenny first. They were happy with the carrot. It made Jenny jealous when I talked to Jack. She ran him off. I gave them carrot chunks until I ran out. Jack got the last one and it made Jenny mad. She bit at me to show her displeasure. It wasn't a serious attempt, just a showing of the teeth to express her displeasure. It made her so mad she tore into Jack, kicking him, biting at him, running him off again. She kept at him with her ears back. I picked up some hay to take to the meadow. She reached her head across the fence and snatched a bite of some hay, aggressively, with an attitude that said, You piss me off. I stepped into the meadow between them, them prancing around me, Jenny swinging her rear end around on Jack and kicking at him. I went on into the meadow a ways, Jenny beside me. She started getting antsy with me, swung her rear end around, it hopping up and down and she let go a couple kicks in my direction. She got me on the leg a little. Barely a sensation, just enough to say, "I kick you," like her attempt to bite before was saying, "I bite you." I said, "It's on, baby." I dropped the hay and turned on her and gave her a good kick in the rump to say, "I kick you." She jumped a few steps away and looked at me like to say, I didn't know you could kick.

 

jenny kicks at jack

 

I have to say that before I put the hay down, I questioned if I really wanted to up the ante and join the kicking fest as a participant. Would I be saying it is ok now to kick me, because I kick too? This was unusual behavior for Jenny. I was two hours late with morning carrots and hay. Both donkeys were so anxious when I went out the door that Jenny came the closest to a full bray she ever has. Her jealousy came forward with conviction around Jack. By now, an hour later, they are munching hay side by side. My learning this morning is to be more consistent in the time I take carrot to them. They come to count on my timing being the same every day when it is the same for months at a time. It wasn't that they had nothing to eat. It was the two hour delay. Stretching their patience made them anxious. I like to believe I am conscious of habits in myself and have them under control. Nonsense. Awareness of habits means I allow them. It doesn't change anything. I know when something happens to bypass a habit, I get odd acting. Like if I don't have my coffee in the morning, I'm anxious, not because I feel like I need the coffee, it's that I skipped a morning habit. It cracked me up to see the look in Jenny's eye after I kicked her. It made Jenny so mad when I gave the last carrot chunk to Jack that she tore into him with serious intent. I had camera in pocket. She spent so much time tormenting Jack that I had plenty of time to take camera from pocket, open camera, push the buttons I have to push to get it ready. I got several pictures of her pushing Jack, biting at him, kicking him, even going after him when he was trying to get away from her. I won't try to train Jenny away from her jealous streak. It's mine to learn to live with it, work around it, not excite it. It was a good learning for me to see why it is important to be consistent with them. I make them dependent on me, so I need to be more conscious of my own training. I have trained them to anticipate carrot and hay at a certain time every morning. It makes them nervous when I go against pattern.   

jenny tells jack to scram

I made the decision to kick Jenny back immediately. I took it as a personal event between us. I wanted to tell her in her language I don't accept being kicked. She didn't really kick me, but it was close enough I wanted her to know I don't appreciate it. On the other hand, I may have been telling her I want to play the kick game now. We'll see. This morning's rampage was such an exceptional circumstance, me late, donkeys anxious. Jenny starts acting up when they get anxious. She's become jealous of me talking to Jack now. I talk to her while she's munching carrot. I turned to Jack to talk to him and Jenny put her ears back, her head down and she lit into Jack, running him off. Just for talking to him. When Jack got the last chunk of carrot, she cut loose. It would have been a good chance to run the video in the camera to get a moving picture of Jenny's antics. I had the chance to see close up what I'd been dreading, a Jenny kick. Her rump was between a foot and two feet from me when she started hopping up an down in back and kicked a couple times. They didn't really connect, though they touched. I know she was not aiming to hurt me. She was having a donkey moment with Jack and I just happened to be there, but she knew what she was doing. And, like I said, they were not real kicks, just gestures. Still, I wanted her to know ice cream man is not going to take her kicks passively. I remembered a few months ago when Justin's neighbor was hit in the head with a golf club by a "friend" while he was at the sink washing some dishes. We asked him what he did about it. He said he didn't do anything. He was several days recovering. Justin said, If somebody hit me with a golf club, I might not be able to get up right away, but when I'm up, he better run. We both lectured him that you don't just let somebody hit you in the head with a golf club. He said he's nonviolent. We laughed. I laughed because I saw myself in another time of my life. Nonviolent is one thing, but taking whatever shit comes your way is quite another. A month or so later he told a little more that was behind it. He'd asked for it. First telling, it came from out of the blue.

jenny's ears all the way back

 

I don't know that I would have kicked Jenny back a few years ago. It has been recently my favorite color changed to red, and I'm feeling it. I find I have an aggressive attitude I never had before. I've never been of an aggressive mind. I'm finding in this time that I'll stand up to about anybody. This morning's aggression came from knowing I had to do something to let Jenny know my displeasure, in language she could understand a little better than, "Cut that out!" She's quick to tell me her displeasure. Now that we're communicating, I felt it necessary to give her the payback immediately, not wait a minute. Jenny and I are still getting to know each other. I believed it important to tell her what I had to say, "I kick you." They understand symbolic gestures, which is all my kick amounted to. I'll learn soon how Jenny took my gesture. I'm learning Jenny wants focus of attention on herself. Alpha donkey. I'll work with her. I can see when she starts getting anxious while I'm talking to Jack. I'll pay more attention to her jealousy and not provoke it. I continued talking to Jack after she started showing her feelings. That's what provoked her. She's taught me she wants to be first. Now she's telling me she wants to be last too. I'll go easy with her. I know she has a jealous nature, and I know I can't change it in her. I can, however, adjust my behavior to provoke her jealousy as little as possible. Later in the day, an hour or so before dark, I took them a couple of carrots. Jack's face looked like he'd been kicked in the head several times. The whites in his eyes were red. He looked like Mike Tyson. He had a rough day. It arouses Jack when Jenny gets frisky. I went away for the afternoon to watch the race. I imagine Jack spent the day trying to mount Jenny and she kicked him all over the meadow. He doesn't let up when he's aroused. He'll take all the kicking she can give him. I felt a little bit bad being responsible for Jack taking so many head  kicks. We are still learning each other. I will be more mindful of Jenny's jealous nature.

jenny wants a kiss

 

 

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DONKEY KICK DANCER

jenny and jack

Feeling kind of wound up today. Tried to take a nap and it didn't take. Nothing special about the day except it's twenty degrees outside and about a half an hour of freezing rain an hour ago. I'm wondering how the donkeys and the calves are working out the shelter of the donkey den. I've an idea the calves were the first ones in the den and possibly donkeys next. I might be romanticizing. They all might have stood in the raining ice, though I doubt it. My feeling is that in extraordinary circumstances, all four would fit in there more or less comfortably. Like at a watering hole and a bait pile, the animals seem to declare those places safe zones where nobody attacks anybody, except the crocodiles with a brain the size of a pea. Possibly the calves and the donkeys could snuggle in there together for the warmth especially. Every day I'm raking out the night's leavings by the calves. It's not much. It's frozen making it easy to rake. I don't want them having to sleep in a toilet. It's something I can do to make the going a little easier for them. They know each other very well. They share the meadow. Raking out the shed is a good chance to visit with my friends. I see the fur on the donkeys is thicker than not long ago. The calves have thicker fur too. I've seen calves and cows packed into stalls in stockyard situations and they manage to find their own space. On a cold night, I imagine they are making the best of it. I think about going out to take a look with a flashlight, but don't want to disturb them. By now, they're in place and possibly sleeping.

 

jenny and jack

 

I felt Jack's hoof today. He kicked me thinking he was kicking Jenny. I barely felt it, merely a tap on my right hand. I was a bit surprised, because I didn't believe Jack would kick me. He didn't. I happened to step between them at the same time they swung their ass ends to each other. Each one had a bowl of grain. They get jealous over their grain and the carrots. I thought I had the bowls far enough apart to avoid a kick dance. Another time Jenny was feeling the pocket of my shirt, and bit the flap sticking up from it. I let out a yelp and she pulled her head back. They talk to each other with a grunt kind of sound that says, get back. I've been watching their kicks and they've looked like little more than light jabs, their way of saying, don't get too close. It's only when I take them the grain and carrots, or when it's just me. They both come to me, then they're right there together, each one wanting to be number one, then the dancing starts. Grunts and kicks. I've been thinking if one of them kicked me during one of their kick dances, it probably wouldn't hurt much. It looks like they're fairly lightly touching each other. It's a swift move of the leg, but I'm seeing that the force stops at the time of contact. Jack kicking my hand today gave a measure of what the kick dance is like. I felt like he'd let go of the force of the kick just at contact. And I don't think it was because he recognized at the last split second he was kicking me, not Jenny. It's a light sparring they do. The kicks are not to hurt, just a gesture, speaking without words. Acting out.

 

jack and jenny

 

I feel more at ease among them now. I'm not so apprehensive about getting kicked. I've seen the subtle control they have with their legs. They know every grade of kick from a tap to sending you over the moon. I've seen Jenny lay into Jack with both back feet making a loud slap on his ribs. He didn't even blink. He took it like a tree. If she'd kicked me like that, I'd have gone flying ten feet and landed on my face in Jack's manure pile . I'm still not certain about Jenny when she turns her back end to me. I step out of the way. I don't move away anymore when Jack turns his rear to me. I've not had a chance yet to know Jenny as well as I know Jack. Jack and I were friends for a few months when he was in the meadow alone. The arrival of Jenny put Jack on another planet for awhile. He is back now. The friendship we had before is still with us. Though it's a new Jack. The Jack I know now is Jack the stallion. Before Jenny, Jack was a boy. Now Jack is a man. Jacques le Baudet. He seems like he is under a bit of horse stress having a woman to keep his eye on. He feels very strongly toward Jenny. It's a domination obsession he has with her. Some days he looks so stressed I think of Mike Tyson's face after years of getting battered by powerful men. I've seen Jack look like he'd  been kicked all over the head. He had that dazed kind of look I see in Tyson's eyes. There are times he seems worn out from the stress of dominating Jenny. She's bigger than him, and she's no easy one to kick around. Jack's happy with his woman. And I'm happy with my donkeys. Both are good natured, have intelligent minds, and make good friends.

 

jenny

 

I feel better for Jack now that he has his partner. Their marriage was arranged by chance. One day Jenny's name was Daisy and she had a happy life living with some goats and some humans that took good care of her. Three humans showed up in a truck and a trailer, wrestled Daisy into the trailer she did not want to go into. She rode up the mountain of endless curves, was released, it almost dark, and this buck donkey was suddenly on her back. She took off running, saying, I don't even know you. Jack right behind her saying, Stand still and you will. She says, What kinda donkey you think I am? Jack says, A babe--I love you baby--be still a minute. They are so Ottoman. They make me think of the pasha, or whatever he's called, reclining on enormous cushions with his belly dancer slave who dances for him and no one else. Treat her man right and he's the best protection she could have. Leo Tolstoy raped his wife on their wedding night and freaked her out about sex with him the rest of their lives. Jack has taken Jenny for his own. She goes along because he can break her down if she declines his attention. This is neither matriarchal nor patriarchal what they're doing. It is pre human by a long stretch of evolution. They are not that far away in consciousness. The consciousness of humans is only one great leap in consciousness from the four-leggeds. That's our fore-brain, our blessing and curse in one department of the brain's evolution. Put verbal language aside and they are right here with us. They have a complex language of reading eyes, body language, even grunts and other vocal utterances, and telepathy that we've lost the ability to pay attention to and have to relearn it. I like to make contact with a consciousness the other side of the forebrain divide. I don't think they are like us as much as we are like them. I don't mean details of behavior, because that is species specific, but the consciousness that transcends biology.

donkey jenny

 

 

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DONKEY HORSEPLAY

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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