Well, that night I didn't sleep all that well, and was happy when it was finally time to get up. Having arrived in the dark of night it was nice to finally check out where we actually were. The surrounding mountains were just absolutely gorgeous and our neighbours were delightful. They came in the form of three mammoth donkeys and a miniature donkey, called Hot Tottie and he was adorable and a feisty little thing, giving the big girls a run for their money.
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Hot Tottie and Valentina
( this picture reminds me of one we have at the DSC of Cocoa and Paco) |
We slowly made our rounds to familiarize us with our surroundings and soon started helping with feeding the animals. Another WOW moment...there were so many donkeys.....217 to be exact, some mules, plus six horses, a cow, a lots of cats and dogs. Not all, but the majority of animals at the Wild Burro Rescue, are wild.
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| approx. 70 wild Jennets in this paddock |
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| A lovely horse, of course. |
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| Billy, acquired at a Garage Sale for $ 5.00. |
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Wild Mustang.
He kind of freaked me out a little,even though he was very sweet, he just had this wild look in his eyes. |
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| A mule. There was one mule that looked just like our Hummer. |
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| Floppy ear Donkey. |
It took a while to feed all the animals and then we got our own breakfast. Sitting around with everybody and listening to them talk about the life out here and the donkeys, we sure learnt a lot and compared a lot of notes, and what a difference in challenges just due to the demographics. It was interesting and I loved just sitting there listening to it all. Diana sure has a lot of knowledge about her donkeys, and yet she was eager to learn and hear about our donkeys and our challenges, how we do things etc. After breakfast we filled some water troughs, by then it gotten awfully hot already. We were lucky as it was partly cloudy on the days we were there, so I can not even imagine doing all this work under blue sunny skies. The afternoon was spent picking rocks out of the road and piling them to make a french drain for a potential shower. We worked mostly along side Chris, another volunteer from Massachusetts and we helped him build a wall around his accommodations. We took a lot of breaks due to the heat and the constant need to drink water. I don't think I ever drank that much water in my life before, yet it never felt like being enough.
Towards the evening hours I just hung around the different paddocks watching the donkeys and being lost in my own thoughts. Some of the things we saw where not pretty, but part of the life of a wild burro, and keeping that in mind was always a good reminder to bring you back to reality and the things that need to be done and how difficult they are to do with some of these animals.
After a delicious vegan dinner and some more donkey conversations we fell exhausted into our beds.
3 comments:
That had to be a BIG place! The amount of animals to be cared for sounds overwhelming!
The Mustang did have a look in his eyes, maybe just genetics...
Love the lop-eared donkey, looks like a sweetie.
Can see why they are vegan...
Hauling rocks in the heat UGH!
That was a beautiful mustang. Too bad they can't run free any longer. It sounds like you are having a great trip, I checked out day 2 in Death Valley as well.
You are so right Inger and he was beautiful and the whole time there I was depressed bc of the fact that all these animals have lost their home and are no longer where they should be and who knows what they went through to get there. How frightened they all must have been when they were first caught....still makes me cry to think about it....and then I think of my Orly here at the DSC and her long journey....will blog about this later. It's really sad!
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