Dear Friends,
The work continues right up to the close of 2025. Yesterday we made the long trek to pick up two donkeys who had been seen wandering out in the wild, around a very rural area where not many homes exist,. We made a very slow drive down an unmaintained bumpy, rutted out road. It took us an hour to go seven miles pulling a horse trailer. At the end of this very long road, with only a house or two insight the entire drive, we pulled into a ranch we had been to five or six years ago. Someone we had helped in the past, had now helped these two lost donkeys by gathering them in their corral.
A slender, elderly man, probably in his mid-seventies, walked up to the truck and showed us where to back our trailer. Once we got the trailer situated we realized it was going to be a difficult task to get two unhandled donkeys into our trailer. There was just the three of us, the enclosure was quite large and there were two other donkeys in the midst. Klaus got some sweet feed and lured his donkeys to the far end of the enclosure. Now we just had to figure out how to get the other two to head towards the trailer with its door wide open and get in. Having done this so many times, Lary and I realized this was going to be very difficult. We were told it would be easy to load the donkeys, had we known how large the area was, we would have brought more people with us. I said a prayer because I felt that was the only way we could accomplish this task.
We put a little sweet feed on the back of the trailer and poured a trail of it into the middle of the trailer in hopes that would entice the donkeys to get close to the trailer. After the third or fourth try moving the donkeys along the fences edge, the little jenny smelled the sweet feed and stopped at the back of the trailer to take a nibble. We all walked foward just a little and to our amazement, she jumped in. We closed the door and decided we would try to put a halter on her. Lary got in the trailer and she moved to the very front and stood pretty still. It was clear though, that she was unsure and a little scared. Not wanting to get kicked, and we both know how accurately donkeys can kick, we decided not to try to halter her. Instead, we noticed a pipe panel leaning up against the fence that was the perfect size tie inside as if it were a divider, something we had done many times. Once the panel was secured, she settled down and now we had to see if we could get her companion in the trailer too.
He was a little more skeptical than she, but she was inside the trailer and brayed to him as if to say, here I am. While Klaus's donkeys were still eating away at the other end of the pen, we again moved him along the fence line. This time he went behind the trailer door instead of in front of it, so he was stuck in a corner. We patiently waited for him to work his way out and tried to guide him to the back of the trailer. Our movements had to be so slow and steady so he would not bolt right past us. I am saying silent prayers, "please Lord, let him get in the trailer".
She brayed again and he walked to the back of the trailer, sniffed at the food and then looked up at her. She was looking at him with such trust in her eyes, clearly they were communicating in a language that comes with long-time companionship. Then to our surprise, he jumped in the trailer. We closed the trailer door and with a sigh of relief, said, "Thank you Lord!".
Another hour to get the seven miles to the main road and we were on our way back to the resuce. We set up their stall with water, salt and mineral blocks, put hay nets around the stall and then backed the trailer in the barn to unload them. They quietly walked into the stall and started sniffing around. They went to the outside part of the stall to check out that area and in a short time both started to drop to the ground and roll. To us, a sign that they knew they were safe and could stop the worry of being out in the wild. We watched with happiness, knowing that even though our day had been completely rearranged, the trip was long and the task seemingly an uphill battle, we made a difference for these two donkeys and the look on their faces seemed to say, "thank you".
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