I was up on the hill with Lulu and Fanny today, Maria took this photo and then asked me if I ever thought in my other life that I would love a donkey and live with two. No, I said, I never did.

I saw my first donkey nearly 20 years ago, her name was Carol she was standing in a small enclosure where she had live by alone for almost 16 years, she drank from rainwater and a trickling stream and mostly ate bark and vegetation.

She rarely had fresh hay and was lame and foundering.

She was kind of grumpy and antisocial, and who could blame her? Her small corral was right next to the farm where I first learned to train dogs to herd sheep. Carol was neglected rather than abused, I loved her right away. She was smart, independent and intensely observant.

I started bringing her apples and she busted through the fence, chased the dogs and sheep away and hounded me until I gave her all the apples I had. When I ran out, she tried to bite me.

When I bought Bedlam Farm and brought the sheep upstate, the farmer stuck Carol on the trailer, and my life affairs with donkeys began in earnest. Carol loved listening to Willie Nelson on a boombox, that was the only time I could brush her and give her her shots and medicine.

The large animal vet came to check her out, took a look at her, gave me a bunch of five-inch needles, told me to stick one in her butt twice a day, and then fled. Just try it, said Carol, dragging me all over the pasture, kicking and biting me when she could.

Except for when I had Willie Nelson singing on the boombox.

Carol was like a raptor, she studied the gates and figured out how to open them.  She was always busting out of the gate, not because there was anything on the other side, but because I didn’t want her to.

She was smart enough to know how to drive me crazy and misbehave with style. I got her another donkey – Fanny – to keep Carol company and when Carol died of a stroke, I got another donkey – Lulu – to keep Fanny company.

So it goes.

You don’t realize at first that you are never calling the shots with donkeys, you really work for them and if you’re smart, you do what they tell you to do. Because nobody can make a donkey do anything they really don’t want to do.

They love people but they are also sick of the abuse and mistreatment they have suffered.

They don’t take orders like dogs, they don’t aim to please, like dogs. They never really submit or give up their independence.

They can be very affectionate. They love attention, they loved to be brushed and fussed over. They are astonishingly intuitive, they can hear us whispering in the bedroom 50 yards away. Lulu and Fanny were purebred donkeys, sweet and calm. They love pregnant women, they sniff their bellies and listen to their babies in the womb.

Donkeys are deeply spiritual, natural contemplatives and meditators. If you treat them well, they will return the favor. If you mistreat or abuse them, they will never forget it.

They are viscerally calm creatures if treated well, and I always find them soothing and comforting.

I also love donkeys because they earn their keep. They are guard animals, they are always watching for coyotes or stray dogs. If they see one, they put their ears back and their heads down and charge.

For 15 years, they have kept foxes, coyotes and other predators out of our pastures, we have never lost a sheep to a predator.

I think those are the basic reasons I love donkeys. And no, I certainly never once imagined I would live just a few yards from two of them. I always think of Lulu and Fanny as sweethearts. And Fanny and Lulu’s love be back,  I can because when I ignore either of them for too long, they stick their noses in my butt and give me a memorable shove.

Donkeys know how to love.

(Photo By Maria Wulf)