Have you ever exercised with Donkeys?

by Catherine
(May, TX)

Like all Americans, I started out the new year with a resolution to walk around the farm (my parent's 135 acres)more for a healthier me.Like all good Americans, I started out with a strong resolve to stay walking every day.

Somewhere though, I had two jennies who thought that I might not keep my resolve and decided to help me with my resolution of walking, so they followed me around the farm and blocked the easy paths back to the house. They are now my walking buddies.

We must really be a funny sight, a large round woman, two long-eared jennies (Sundae and Chocolate), and an assorted bunch of dogs (who stay well behind and out of the way of the girls). Every now and then we have a calf and a cow follow us too.

I have used these long-eared girls not only as exercise buddies, but also as counselors to my woes of not finding my own homestead farm. I talk, they listen. When I am really sad, mad, or somewhere in between, they nuzzle my neck and ears with their nose and snort (although I am not sure whether this is in sympathy or an admonission to "get over it!").

I am still looking for my perfect homestead. But I have found my community and I still walk with my donkey girls. We are walking buddies after all, and great listeners to all my ramblings.

When I FINALLY do find my perfect homestead farm, these girls are coming with me. We have become quite a threesome, and I could not imagine a farm or exercise without Chocolate and Sundae.