So much to tell. I was off line for awhile...ISP problems and

also kind of under the weather with an injury.

First, about Lucky. Lucky is the jack that I penned up and started feeding. He had an injured leg. He did very well, and slicked off and his leg healed. Here is a picture made after he was mostly shedded off and was gaining weight.

The problem was, Lucky would call and call a certain jack, one that my friend, Jodie, named Isaiah. I thought at first that Lucky hated him, but later, decided that they were probably friends. Every time Isaiah heard Lucky, he would come up from the pasture and walk the fence and try to get in. Several times he did, and when he did, they would fight

over Lucky's stall partition...knocking part of it down and breaking boards. Many times we repaired it...my friend, Jodie, and I, the best we could with what we had on hand.

Almost every day, Isaiah would get into the corral. Jodie liked him. His mother was the jenny that had the foal...she was pregnant when we let her into the corral and penned her up so we could feed her. Anyway, one evening, Isaiah was standing outside Lucky's stall...as usual. Lucky was standing quietly in his stall. I had a bucket of water and was going to pour it over the fence of the little turn out, connected to Lucky's stall, into the water trough we had for him.

Isaiah never backed his ears or gave me any indication...he reached out and grabbed me by the front of my right thigh, and he wouldn't let go. I had a flashlight in my hand and I

yelled at him to get back and hit him across the head with the flashlight. He didn't let go. He bit harder and started backing up. I hit him again. It was a few seconds,

and he finally let go of me. I was weak in the knees. I turned around and grabbed ahold of the stall partition because I thought I'd pass out. Anyway...that was over a month ago, and I still have a hematoma the size of a child's football on the front of my thigh. It has gone down in size, somewhat, and I went to two doctors. One said lance it...the other said, don't. I was on strong antibiotics for a couple of weeks and had a tetanus shot.

That really knocked me for a loop as far as physically goes.

It wasn't that it was so painful...so many nerves were destroyed that it is more or less "dead" now...but I felt zapped as far as energy goes. Many days I took care of the animals and spent the rest of the day in bed. I am just now getting my strength back.

After that, I saw that I was probably taking these animals too much for granted...especially the jacks...Isaiah and Lucky. I no longer went in Lucky's stall when Isaiah was any where around. But every dadgummed day, Isaiah would end back up in there, fighting with Lucky over the fence.

On July 26th, came to feed, and Lucky's stall was demolished, and he was gone. Isaiah was no where to be found either.

Jodie and I stayed there until 1:00 a.m., fixing the fence to keep Isaiah out. We got some cattle panels and wired them up very tightly. I nailed the boards back on Lucky's stall but I knew it was pointless and he would tear them down again to get out.

Furthermore, our much awaited baby from Fern, which is what I named the jenny, was about to arrive. She had been bagged up for some time, but was dripping milk, and that means within 24 hours the baby would arrive.

I got to the barn at 7 the next morning. The baby was here!

Fern was laying down but had already passed the afterbirth, and had laid back down, and the baby was standing. Fern got up and the baby was big and healthy and looking to nurse...not always in the right direction, but she soon got it figured out. After carrying my camera for weeks, I only had battery enough for a couple of pictures. Here she is,

just wobbly still.

Jodie and I so wanted a little girl and she was a beauty.

She was dark, but would be grey...almost silver for the time being. She had a little white spot the size of a dime on her left flank.

I doctored the umbilical stump, gave her and her mother a tetanus shot and a little antibiotics, and left them to get acquainted.

Here she is the next day...already growing.

Lucky was in the pasture but wouldn't come up to be fed, however the next day he was more interested in feed, and now

he comes up every day, twice a day and I feed him. He is still in the big pasture though. I have decided to leave him there until I can bring him home, and I can't bring him until he is gelded. Right now, it is too hot to do that. I have read quite a bit about donkeys and they are said to be

"bleeders"...so, especially considering his age, which I believe to be around 10 years, I want to take as many precaustions as I can with that. He is doing okay...and he is happy in the pasture. I haven't seen Isaiah since Lucky went out. I don't know if they fought and Lucky won or Isaiah won...or what. I have heard him a couple of times, I think, but he no longer answers Lucky when Lucky brays.

There was a particular little jenny that I liked and hadn't seen her for awhile, so one day Jodie borrowed the owners Mule...one of those ATV type things that is sort of like a jeep, and we drove out in the pasture.

I was amazed. The pasture is huge. Jodie had said about 40 acres, but it is much more than that...probably well over 100 acres. There is lots of grass back there. I saw donkeys that I have never seen before, and some were beautiful. Why some of them hang around up front where there is no grass, is a mystery to me. There is lots of grass, lots of water and 6 barns....old, but they do provide shelter.

Our donkey baby was doing great. The stall is about 12' wide and 35' long. It is the entire back side of the barn, which has stalls in front. Both ends are open and the stalls are planks, so air could flow through. The only solid wall, the back wall, was open at the bottom. Boards were across there, but, again, air could flow through. There is no electricity in the barn. We clean stalls by battery operated lanterns.

I hadn't brought them home because my husband hasn't been home long enough to fix the fence where I wanted to put them. My horses are so docile they will stay in even if the gate is open, and since we moved in the house, and took down the front fence...there is just a hay string across there and my horses won't cross it. I know it would be different

with the donkeys, and as crippled as I am, I can't afford to be running after them, if they get out.

It is much too hot this time of year for foals. But since the jennies are pasture bred, they have babies all year long. This heat is brutal, but I had no idea our baby would have a heat stroke in the barn. Like I said, there was good air flow through it...but it got up to 112 that day.

We tried so hard to save her. I spent the night at the barn. We called two vets. One,we called 7 times, and got his answer service but never a call back. Another one called and we asked if we brought her, would he put her down. He said no. She made it through the night and we took her to a equine specialist. He gave her an IV and said

we would know in a couple of hours if it was going to work, but even though she rallied briefly, she had a seizure and her temperature shot up to 106 and I asked that she be put down. There was no point to put off the inevitable.

She was a precious baby. So much personality...and in my pocket every time I went in the stall. Curious about everything and always underfoot. Much more outgoing than any horse foal I have raised. We were heartbroken to lose her.