Every evening, before or after dusk, I go out to the barn to the old cow stall that the donkeys have co-opted as their private clubhouse – they don’t let the sheep in and even chase the chickens out. They never eliminate in Rocky’s old stall, it is always clean, nor do they chew on the wood or the walls, as they sometimes do when they are bored. When I come in, they are always there, sometimes escaping the flies, who do not go there,

It has become a spiritual place for me, when I enter, all three of them are usually there, braying softly to me (Simon does not know how to bray softly, he always brays loudly). We had closed off this stall after Rocky died, we thought the donkeys would wreck it, but it is almost spotless, a curious thing for three donkeys who spent a lot of time there. On windy or snowy days, the donkeys retreat there and leave the pole barn to the sheep. They leave the stall to graze but always return to it at different times of the day. I think of it as their sanctuary, their church, their spiritual place, a kind of donkey chapel.

For me, this makes sense, donkeys are the most spiritual animals I know, they understand the idea of the chapel, instinctively if not literally,  I am sure.