Who know that it could be so hard to find a ranch fencing contractor who had time to fence a few acres? I started working on this project eight months ago.
But just a few days ago the fencing project was finished by the incomparable Ron Chappell from Statewide Fence Company and his sidekicks Oliver and Taylor. Thanks to Ron, the conceptualization of the fencing layout improved a lot, so I now have three partitions to do rotational grazing with a shelter in the center.
I didn’t have to look long on craigslist before finding my first animals: a pair of guard donkeys! Just a few days after the fencing was done I was picking them up in Hillsboro. I have missed having a donkey and am thrilled to have this pair: Mocha and Latte.
I’ve been hearing a lot of coyotes at sunset the past few weeks. It sounds like a crowd cheering in the distance and then migrates to the familiar but way too close and loud coyote yips. One evening I had an amphitheater of responding yips from all around the hills, and it sent chills down my spine. And a school bus driver spotted a cougar walking up my drive one day. If I’m going to raise feeder animals, guard animals seem essential.
Mocha and Latte the evening of their arrival at Pigs Can Fly Ranch in Lebanon, Oregon, USA.
Quotes and Trivia
“Donkeys…I’ve decided that donkeys are universally cute. Really cute. So cute that donkeys defy any arguments of preferences being relative. When you pet their noses, they blink their eyes and bashfully look away as if embarrassed. And when donkeys hee-haw, they have their mouths and lips curled up as if they are smiling. Boyfriend and girlfriend donkeys rest their heads on each other’s rump and fan each other’s faces with their tails. And kid donkeys, the size of an average dog, trot around with big smiles on their faces and floppy, dangly, long donkey ears. Too cute.”
― Johnny Rico, Blood Makes the Grass Grow Green: A Year in the Desert with Team America