Just about every day, someone asks me to put up a new video of Simon braying, but I think there are enough videos of Simon braying on You Tube to last awhile. I just don’t like doing the same thing too often.  For me, creativity requires being spontaneous, so I don’t really listen to requests for photos (every day someone asks for more dog photos also), but rather take the photos and videos that seem fresh and interesting to me. This is why I can’t imagine charging for the blog.  One woman squawked on Facebook recently that there were not enough photos of dogs lately. There’s a refund on the way, I happily replied. Head for petfinder.org, there are thousands there. People might think they can tell me what to do if I started doing what I was told. I suppose they think that anyway.

For me this would all get stale fast if I started taking orders for images. And I would get angry quickly enough. I know me.  Still, I understand the impulse.

Simon’s call to life – he brays to me every time I come out of the farmhouse – is certainly stirring. At no point in my life did I imagine having an appreciative donkey bray for me every time I walked outside. Life is refreshing in that way. Simon is perhaps demanding a carrot or cookie, but it does often appear to me that he is expressing his own form of gratitude, of celebration, in that sense a call to life. I doubt he remembers his ill-treatment before coming to the farm or cares much about it – humans need to remember such things, not donkeys – but there is something affirming and celebratory about him and his wondrous bray, which echoes through the valley and can be  heard for miles. He seems to love his life, and he seems to be a very happy creature. Maybe his long period of deprivation has give him this sense of joy. I wonder if our new neighbors will like the bray. In the country, people tend to appreciate things. They will likely get a rooster crowing also.