Today, Zip and I met in our usual chair overlooking the hills and the pasture.

It is one of my favorite places. It is quiet there, and Zip seems to enjoy it as much as I do. He hops up on my shoulder, and the two of us look out at the pasture, the birds, and the sheep and donkeys grazing when they are out.

It is surprisingly calming. Zip is my pal at the farm. We love hanging out, and it seems to settle us down.
I look forward to it, so I think he does, too. To my amazement, we have become good and trusted friends. Something that has never come easily in my life.

We are unlikely pals, thrown together in the Ferris Wheel of life. One thing that binds us is that we are both very happy in our lives and are in the right place at the right time with the right people and animals.

It saddens me to think that there are people so cruel and unknowing as to have tried to have Zip taken away from us because they are so ignorant of us and or our animals. How sad that these are the people who claim to be champions of animal rights when they work so hard to take their rights away.

I don’t wish to dwell on that; it’s over. I feel for the people who don’t have the resources or information that I have and can’t fight back.

Thanks to Maria for these lovely pictures; she is joining us this afternoon for some silent time under the Apple Tree. How lucky I am.

Fanny is in considerable pain after some challenging surgery to clean out her right front hoof after a deep abscess had trouble healing.

We had to change her bandages daily for several weeks and clean her foot with Epsom salts every morning for a week or so.

Fanny is an agreeable donkey, but these procedures hurt, and she balks and tries to get away. She gave us both a brutal wrestling match this morning, but Maria got the wound cleaned out, the bandages put on, and the hoof soaked.

This will take a while and be challenging, but we will do it. Fanny trusts us, but the work on her hooves has made touching the wound painful. Thank you in advance, but we don’t need any advice, thanks.

Zip and me, two.

Our friend Dan was back this morning to scrape the rotting shingles off of the front porch. He decided it was easier and faster to replace the shingles with boards than to replace them. He said we got to it just in time; there were early signs of but replacing the shingles will take care of it. It’s a pleasure to have Dan around; he has excellent ideas and works hard and skillfully.

Our house and barn were in peril from rotting wood.

Soon, all of that will be gone.