Day 4 (Thursday)

We didn't get up quite as early as we did the days before and since it was another hot day we tried to get a lot of the work done before it got to hot. I spend most of the afternoon by myself hanging out with the donkeys. I spend a lot of time with a bunch of Jacks that were fighting at times like crazy, whose Jacks really can be nasty to each other, no wonder they often look so messed up. Not sure what this guy's name was, but he reminded me of my sweet Orly, he just had the same look about him as she does.

Orly's California Cousin

I also spent a lot of time by the round stone paddock which was enclosure for about seven Geldings. They were all very curious and cheeky and fighting for attention. After about an hour they were nicely taking turns to get petted. There were some interesting colourings in some of the donkeys. They were all so cute.

One thing I noticed is that even the wild donkeys are just as curious as our "domesticated' donkeys, they might be a little bit timid when you try to pet them, but most of them were willing to get petted if you were quiet, calm and just patient. I noticed however that they were constantly flaring their noses at you and the first thing they did when coming closer was sniffing you from top to bottom, I guess they had to make sure you weren't an enemy.
After spending some cuddle and petting time it was back to work. This part of the job was very emotional for me, but it was a happy ending and I know all will be well. Peewee, one of the adoptable donkeys at the Wild Burro Refuge, was going to his new home. An elderly couple, who had once two donkeys were the new parents to PeeWee. One of the donkeys had died and they were worried about the wellbeing of their remaining donkey and so looked into the adoption of PeeWee. Now having seen what it can be like to load a donkey in general I knew that loading a wild donkey would even be a little bit harder. But with a lot of preparation to make this a smooth loading and a lot of patience, PeeWee was loaded after a little more than three hours. It was funny to watch as the husband of the couple was a horseman and he tried to load PeeWee how you would load a horse, but PeeWee showed him right at the beginning that this will not work with a donkey and he gave up quickly. It's amazing how patience and understanding can go a long way when it comes to loading a donkey, in any case. Chris,who was also a Reiki master, had a great deal to do with how smooth it actually went.

Chris being ever so patient and calming Pee Wee through Reiki

The hardest part was getting him close enough to the trailer, to put his front feet in and then lift his behind up into the trailer, but again a lot of patience and a lot of strong people finally got Pee Wee on the trailer. I'm hanging on to the rope through the window in the trailer.:)

Almost done....

Once on the trailer Pee Wee actually looked very relaxed and not scared at all, that made me so happy.

A lot of times when I was watching the donkeys there, it made me sad and depressed, because of what they have been through to get to the Rescue and that this shouldn't be at all....they should be roaming, and who knows how scared they must have been when they were first rounded up. Whether there is forward thinking or not, being in the moment in those moment is scary enough. Poor babies.

Later that evening we invited everybody to dinner at the one and only local restaurant and we had a great time there. We learnt that  Pee Wee had safely arrived at his new home. Of course we can't end the day without some excitement for us and the joy of laughter for others, as we totally got lost when we tried to find our way back to the ranch, lol, that of course happened because we didn't want to wait for everybody as well as show them we can do it....well we couldn't and after 1/2 hr drive we finally realized that we didn't have the right road, we were actually going uphill, so we turned around and met up with everybody at the bottom of the road, where they all waited and laughed as they saw only our headlights driving in the darkness out in nowhere land. Ha ha very funny!

We finally made it to the Ranch and went to bed soon after, however most of us didn't sleep well, as there must have been lots of action in the mountains around us as the donkeys were very restless and vocal that night.