Friday, September 11, 2009

Frieda's Big Adventure
(First Published Summer 2008)


I found this the other day, and it brought back some fond memories of my darling donkey and me!...

Frieda wanted to go for a walk, so I put her halter on yesterday morning (while Ryan worked on some farm-related projects), and took her out of the pasture. She stopped at every spot of fallen hay particles to munch, so it took a while to get even a few feet. I let her be her donkey self - after all, neither of us were in a hurry. We hadn't seen each other all week, and I wanted to get in some quality time with my darling donkey. Finally, we started walking past the boutique, and Frieda's reflection freaked her out. The minute she noticed it, she jumped back as though it were about to attack her. Then, she carefully walked up and sniffed it. Finally, deciding it was not (at the moment) dangerous, we continued on. We walked a bit past the garage, wherein she spotted the llamas. In typical donkey fashion, she planted all four feet down, put her ears back, and did the "I do NOT want to have anything to do with those giant death monsters!!" stance. I managed to coax her, after a minute or two, to walk a few more steps. At this point, Gruff and Bartholomew raced up to the fence line to say hello. Frieda immediately bolted in fright, remembering at the last minute that yes, I was attached to the end of her lead rope, and stopped just short of having me fall on my face. She gave me a slightly apologetic, slightly "Can we go HOME now??!!" glance, and I sighed and told her that we could. She practically dragged me back to the donkey pasture, again frightening herself when she saw her reflection in the sliding glass door of the boutique. She was happy to be back in her safe, not-so-scary pasture. And that is my dearest donkey's Big Adventure for the week!

Frieda is also terrified of hawks.

1 comment:

footfetish said...

I sometimes feel the same way when I must leave my pasture!