i’ve lived with donkeys for 15 years now, and I love and appreciate them more and more with each day. They are remarkable creatures, intelligent, sensitive and very loving if they love you, and very standoffish if they don’t.

Lulu and Fanny are sisters, they have been together all of their lives, and they are inseparable. I think Maria is really their third sister, we both have strong bonds to them, but Maria’s connection is strong, somewhere between spiritual and mystical.

With donkeys, every decision has to be theirs and there is no civil way to persuade then to do anything they are not in the mood to go.

They are intensely aware of humans, their hearing is astonishing. They hear our conversations in the farmhouse, they even know when we talk in bed, and they bray and scream to get out attention when they are hungry, or need some attention.

Donkeys love to be brushed and talked to, but only when they are in the mood. Every day, they demand that we brush them, talk to them, sit with them. Then, when they are done, they don’t really need to see us again that  day.

They can be the sweetest creatures on  earth, or the most stubborn. Just like me, Maria says. Just like her. We came out into the far pasture to check on the farm, the wind was just shrieking, but nobody seemed to mind. The Spring sun is getting stronger, and we just aren’t paying attention to wintry weather any longer, although todays’s wind and cold did drive us inside after 15 or 20 minutes.

Still, Lulu insisted on being loved a bit, and Maria sat down with her and they talked.