(Above, Maria holds Lulu with one hand while Matt, our farrier, trims her hooves. No lede or halter necessary,)

When we met about 13 years ago, Maria knew little or nothing about animals like cows, donkeys and sheep.

She had never lived with them or spent anytime with them. She was also a techno-phobe, she was terrified, even paralyzed by the new Apple computer she got when she wanted to start her own blog. Like so many gifted women I’ve taught, she did not believe she had anything to say that anyone wanted to hear.

Maria is very generous and kind to me (when I do what I am told). She always says I taught her everything she knows about animals, and everything she knows about blogging.

This is a half truth at best.

She is surely smart and focused enough to have learned these things by herself, given the chance. But the part she leaves out leave out is what is happening now.

She has caught up or surpassed me in every way when it come to caring for animals or blogging, her blog is rich with videos, beautiful photography and gentle but piercing wisdom and honesty.

Her quilts and hanging pieces and potholders practically fly out of here, and what a gift to me so see her grow and innovate and shine. I never taught her one single thing about art, it is deep and powrful inside of her.

I might have taught her things back then that she had had no chance to learn, but now she is teaching me many of the things that I didn’t know or had a chance to learn.

She has taught me how to talk to animals, get them to go where you want them to go without a dog.

She has taught me how to fix up an old farmhouse with just the two of us. She taught me how to use a drill, build a fire,  rewire a lamp,  run a snow blower,  scrape wallpaper off a wall, and how to dress without looking like the Ancient Mariner.

Yesterday, Matt, our very competent farrier came to trim the donkeys hooves. I asked Maria if she needed my help getting the donkeys into the pole barn before Matt came. No,she said, I got them in there. How? I asked, remembering the brawl it was for me to get donkeys into a barn.

I just came into the barn and they followed, she said. That never once happened to me.

When Matt is here, the donkeys are not even on a lede or hooked up to a barn wall.

She just stands next to them and holds their head and they purr like kittens while they get their nails trimmed.

Matt says he’s never seen anything like it.

When she sees a sheep, she can look at it and know instantly if it is sick, has eaten the wrong thing or is doing.

When the vet or the shearer or the farrier come, she always knows more than they do, and keeps the animals calm and steady and tells them what is happening.

Her blog is a wonder of wisdom and beauty and nature and creativity. She mixes all of these disciplines brilliantly and successfully. She taught herself how to write and although she sometimes credits me with helping her do that, the truth is she is a natural writer who simply was never encouraged or supported or taught that she had things to say.

We both learned the same lesson early on in our lives. Encouragement is a sacred gift to children when they get it, and there is a big hole in their hearts when they don’t.

Maria and I are always teaching each other, and always learning from each other.

She is still learning her strengths and gifts, and I am still learning my weaknesses and flaws.

She is creative on more levels than I can really grasp or imagine, I got her an Iphone for Christmas a few years ago and she grew like an octopus changing color – videos, texts, drawings, macro and standard photographs, images of snails, owls, spiders and plants.

She is Steve Job’s fantasy come to life. Given the tools, she sails into the sky.

Often, we cross paths on our trip up or down. We are always learning, always teaching the other, listening to the other, cheering for the other. I never imagined such a thing, or experienced it, but I do give thanks for it every day.

I loved teaching Maria things she was eager to learn. I love learning things from Maria I am desperate to learn (before my time runs out.)

We balance on another, and change and shift as we go. It feels very alive.

To be learning is a gift at any age, to be learning so much at my age is a minor miracle.