Pin the tail on the …

… no … that isn’t quite it. More like pin your nose in the bed sheet. Bella is three today. Isn’t is amazing what a donkey can master in that short a time! In honour of her birthday I decided to reintroduce a big ball to the paddock. She was not the LEAST bit interested. So instead I decided to try something that might help the jennies rub the biting flies off of their faces. Celi Gunther over at thekitchensgarden shared how she put up burlap bags in her trees to allow her cows to brush away the flies. I did have some burlap … but I think that might have been twenty years ago. 😉 I do have a collection of old sheets I use to cover plants in frost seasons. AND the laundry gets hung in the ‘Donkey Garden’ every Sunday so there is our clothesline … Aha! That was fun – for me and the jennies.

To make everything just a little more exciting the wind picked up, the sky darkened and presto! We had ourselves a terrific thunderstorm. I parked myself in the Bully Barn with the jennies to watch the show. “Show” being both the storm and their reactions.

First lesson – not so great – is that when lightning strikes very close by the donkeys all run OUT of the barn! WHAT! Get back in here! For the first few blasts ears went up and every one of them did the stiff legged jump. But then a strange thing happened. They all lined up beside each other, hung their heads (and I mean WAY DOWN THERE) and fell asleep! They snoozed through the rest of the storm. It was a doozy. Large hail that splatted to make the paddock look like someone was having a snowball fight. Driving rain that was LOUD on the barn roof. And whipping winds that kept trying to tear the barn door out of my hands. The barn door that I considered closing but then thought … how bad could it get? We had room to stand back. Not … Since you can only secure it closed from the outside I held onto the chicken wire that protects the wood and pulled it as tightly as I could.

When the storm passed us by I peeked out to see what the paddock (newly covered with sand) would look like. It held up pretty good! You could see where the torrent ran right past the barn door I was holding and then out of the paddock and into the little woods beside us. There was a deep puddle in front of the hay barn … had me wondering what I could do to fix it. But before I finished up the chores it had disappeared into the sand and gravel. Sand paddock – once again looking like a great idea!

Now all is quiet and the sun is setting with that greeny yellow stormy night light. Hope you have a beautiful evening your way. If it storms wake up and take in the show!