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

 

 

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DONKEYS IN THE MIST

jenny and jack

 

New changes in the donkey meadow suggest that Jenny might actually be pregnant. It used to be when I went outside that Jenny would be the first to see me. The last few days it has been Jack who notices first and Jenny goes on acting like she didn't see a thing, same as Jack before. I'm looking for explanation for the change in last 4-5 days. Jenny's jealousy has waned. Jack's attentiveness has increased. The mornings I go out with carrot, Jack sees me first, tears out running and braying, Jenny looks up and walks toward the gate. Jack was maybe twenty feet beyond Jenny when I appeared. He started running. He stopped beside Jenny and looked at me quizzically, not certain of his perception. I've found he does not recognize my face beyond fifty or so feet. He looked like he was questioning. I called his name twice and held the camera up to take a picture. He started braying and ran to the gate in full bray. Jenny raised her head and took her time. She had a new demeanor. I've wondered if her foot hurt again. Doesn't appear to. Finally, it came to me that Jenny might be going into a new phase of her pregnancy. What she's feeling going on inside, I presume she does not understand, though donkeys have a complexity of knowing that I'm not able to understand. I dare not presume. Nonetheless, she's deferring Alpha to Jack, which I've only seen her do when she's not feeling right. She was gentle toward Jack over the carrots, didn't blow, grunt and dive at his neck with her teeth for receiving a chunk of carrot. She acted like it was ok for him to have all the carrot he wanted. I think I've detected a part of her belly showing some expansion, but don't know donkeys well enough to tell with any degree of certainty. Time will answer the question. The only way Jenny could not be pregnant would be if she or Jack were infertile. My thinking is she possibly conceived in February, the coldest part of this winter, meaning baby donkey will arrive in February. It takes twelve months for donkeys.

 

 

jack starts to run

jack brays

 

Jack has become my friend. In the three months before Jenny's arrival, I took my time getting acquainted with Jack, a little at a time. I was wary of him for awhile and he was wary of me. We learned to trust each other and he became my friend. He learned to trust my hands. Jenny's arrival took all Jack's attention. I left them alone for a month. They rampaged all over the meadow. Jenny did not know me. I assessed the safest place was my side of the fence, so I let them fight it out. It's been slow getting to know Jenny due to her circumstances of being taken away from her life before and muscled, against her will, into a strange meadow with a sex-crazed wild ass. I respected her grief and did not push her, let her come to me in her own time. That time is long past and by now my relationship with Jenny is equal to my relationship with Jack. Only difference, we have different histories and the donkeys have different personalities. Having seen Jenny's relaxation with women she meets, I wonder if Jack feels identity with my gender, too. We do have a personal feeling of friendship I don't yet have with Jenny. It feels like I have mutual affection with Jenny. I've only known Jenny as Alpha, which I've learned by now is not who she is, but a role. Jenny without the role is as calm as Jack. The Alpha in Jack appears to make him protective of Jenny. His attitude toward me seems friendlier in his Alpha role. Before, we were friends across a divide, and now it's like the divide has narrowed considerably. Jack has a happy demeanor about him in these days of feeling protective with Jenny. It was love at first sight for Jack when he met his babydoll. He's been smitten since their first night together. I wonder, too, how much of his apparent delight has to do with Jenny falling in love with him. She still kicks at him when he's a nuisance, though she looks at him now with affection. Asked how I know, I don't know. I feel it, sense it, interpret observation.

jack

jenny

 

Today is the third day of all-day fog. It is a cloud passing over the mountain, a very long cloud. Fog is one of my favorite features of living on a mountain. Sometimes it looks like landscape drawn on white paper with soft graphite lines. I like being inside a cloud. I loved flying through canyons of boiling cumulus clouds and I loved flying through cloud on ascent and descent. I'd feel a very minor reverie for being inside a cloud. Working on the farm, I found when tired and needing a break, I could lie on the ground on my back and watch the clouds until I see them moving. I would lie there and watch the clouds move for a few minutes, then get up and go back to work refreshed. Watching clouds move was refreshing as watching a waterfall. Seeing the fog, I feel the minor reverie as dreamlike where only the subject I'm looking at is visible, all around it, in Shakespeare's words, circled in sleep. I also think of Chinese poet Han Shan when fog is on the mountain.  

 

 

               75

 

          I wanted to go off to the eastern cliff---

 

          How many years now I've planned the trip?

 

          Yesterday I pulled myself up by the vines,

 

          But wind and fog forced me to stop half way.

 

          The path was narrow and my clothes kept catching,

 

          The moss so spongy I couldn't move my feet,

 

          So I stopped under this red cinnamon tree.

 

          I guess I'll lay my head on a cloud and sleep.

 

 

                                               ---Han Shan

                                                   tr Burton Watson

 

 

rhododendron leaves

 

 

 

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DONKEY JENNY FEELS MORE AT HOME

jenny and jack

It felt so good today with temperature above freezing in the afternoon, I looked out the window and saw Jack on his side with his head down on the ground like he was dead. One ear sticking up. His belly to the sun, he was soaking up some rays, feeling good. Jenny was standing still receiving the sunlight on her side. Calf 21 was lying down chewing its cud. I walked up to neighbor's house and had another long hot bath. It felt good in the sunlight. Not much wind today. A very pleasant day to follow the coldest day of the year. The calf stays close to Jack or Jenny and by now feels free enough not to be close to them all the time. It seems like the two donkeys have a new attitude toward the calf, and the calf toward them. Before, they were distant. It was the donkeys in one part of the meadow and the calves in another. Jack and Jenny have taken to 21, supporting the calf. I'm thinking the donkeys are able to hear the calf cry with their telepathy. Even without telepathy, they know the loneliness the calf is feeling. Jack, Jenny and the calf were all abducted, taken from their friends and mothers. Jenny is still feeling the loss of her goat friends. I've been seeing in Jenny a calmness come over her in the last week or more. Jack stays close to her, and she stays close to him. One knows where the other one is at all times. On the phone this morning with Carole, I was remarking how calm Jenny has become recently and how Jack kinda seemed like he was hovering somewhat. It appeared to me to be a protective feeling in Jack. I can't read donkeys very well, but his interest in being around her gives the appearance of feeling himself Jenny's protector.

 

jack's nose

 

Jack is a very interesting being to me. I've had a chance to know Jack for some months before Jenny came into the meadow, and by now we are friends. While I was fussing with the hay, Jack was wanting another carrot, which I didn't have. He was poking his nose at my shirt pockets where I carried the carrots, giving me a pesky look with his eye. My glove has a Velcro flap at the wrist that I did not have fastened. It was sticking out from the glove and the sleeve. Jack took the flap with his teeth, looking at me with fun in his eye, I let out a yelp and he let go. I explained to him the carrots are gone. I noticed in the last few days the niggling joy within when I carry an armload of hay through the gate. I let Jenny and Jack each take some hay to chew on while I walk out to where the sun shines. Calf 21 wanted a chew this morning. Now, instead of two and two, it is three. The calf has become Jack and Jenny's friend. I'm glad to see 21 has them to comfort her. I called today to ask about 23. Still has not stood up of its own will. I'm wondering if it is feeling lonesome, taken away from its friend and the donkeys, solitary confinement in a stall with heat and plenty to eat. It doesn't know what is happening. Another abduction, taken again into the unknown. What kind of will to live could it have? It doesn't know that if it gets well, it will be reunited with 21. I'm so bad that I have become acquainted with their personalities to the place I see them people. The stockyard is the same to me as a slave market. I can't talk about this. I live in a world of people who see no value in the person in the animals, same as slave-holders don't value the person in the human.

 

jenny's profile

 

One day talking to Jenny before I realized she understood what I was saying, I mentioned I'm glad I bought her, and she reacted to that word with a brief turn inward to her sorrow. I told myself never to talk about buying her. It was a reminder that she is my slave. Though I don't think of it like that, I don't see how she could think of it any other way. I tell Jenny I'm glad she came to live with me. I'm happy with what I got from the luck of the draw. The better I know Jenny, the better I love her. Her disposition has calmed down so much in the last week or so that I'm suspecting she might be with child. I like her walking beside me while I carry the hay out into the meadow. Jack is close behind and the calf follows Jack. Jenny, being obviously the head donkey, wants her hay first, her grain first, and she wants to be the one next to human. Jack gets too close to me, Jenny's ears go back and she gets a streamlined face that says she's ready for action, face-on like a wolf. She has a fierceness about her she wears well. She's gentle naturally. She's a donkey. It doesn't mean she's going to take any old thing that comes her way. I would not be able to see how fierce a donkey is. I started to write can be. But a donkey is fierce. They have access to their most ferocious self at all times. If you've ever seen on tv wild horses fighting, they have some power in their legs and some power in their jaws. They stand and walk all day and they munch grass and hay all day. Equines are powerful beings. They are gentle by choice.

 

jack's brow

 

Jack has had a quiet about him recently, side by side with Jenny's quiet. It's a restful quiet. I'm feeling they are possibly in process of bonding. Carole's suggestion was that Jenny might be pregnant, going by the recent change in her behavior. I'd say it is a pretty fair likelihood she may be. It takes a year, so she'll have he baby just in time for winter. It happens every winter. It's nothing new. By then, we may have a little better shelter for them. Recently, I have been feeling a safety among the four-leggeds. I feel like Jenny is not going to kick me. I've walked close behind her a few times when she'd turned her back end to me, just to see if she'd kick. It's like swinging her rump around is an automatic defensive move, whether or not to kick is a conscious choice. I think Jenny is learning to trust me. I am learning to trust her. The change in her feels like she is more relaxed with me now. We are not so mutually apprehensive. She has a pesky streak in her nature and likes to play tricks on me. Simple donkey tricks, like biting my shirt tail just to see me jump. It makes her laugh. I like to see a four-legged play and I like it when they play a trick on me. I feel like being included in their play is the best form of communication with them. When one plays a trick on me, I feel like I've broken through the language and all that goes with it barrier. That's when they tell me we are indeed friends. I no longer reach out to touch them. I just walk with them and talk to them and laugh at their tricks. I feel safe with them in their trust. I have always been gentle and humble with them and they are the same to me in return. I'm told that I spoil them. Whatever. I'm safe among them. That, for me, is the main thing. I'm safer among them in gentleness and humility than I am by threatening and hitting. Me heap big Alpha Male! Not. Just somebody who recognizes that they are beautiful people in horse bodies.

 

jack and jenny

 

 

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