Donkey in the Dark

It is always nice to have productive days.  Even if your day goes off the rails at the end, you can still focus on the fact that you checked most of the items off of your to-do list.

Today, Seamus and I completed a few pre-Thanksgiving tasks.  We mucked the barns, picked up chicken food from the feed store, clarified honey, did a few loads of laundry, and made cranberry sauce.

After work, Ian continued constructing the barn.  It is finally finished enough to have the animals move in so that I do not have to relocate Charlie and the sheep from one paddock to another every day.  Ian worked super hard to get it to this stage by Thanksgiving.  We finally packed up the power tools and removed the spare materials from the field at dusk.

Our last chore of the day we to move Charlie, Abbott and Violet into their new home.  Unfortunately, by this time dark had fallen.  I had a bad feeling about trying to move Charlie anywhere in the dark but I had already moved the lambs into her old barn and put a bunch of stuff in the lambs' old pen so we did not have much of a choice.  Charlie, as it turns out, is weary of unknown dark spaces.....like the dark space of a new barn with no windows.....

Ugh.  The relocation was terrible.  There is a reason they say donkeys are stubborn.  Well, this stubborn donkey did not want to go anywhere near her new deluxe barn in the dark.  Abbott and Violet pranced right in and happily munched on the fresh hay I had spread around for them.  Charlie, no way.  Even though the alternative was to stay outside alone and risk a coyote visit - she was not having any of it.  It took both Ian and I to man(woman)-handle her into the barn very much against her will.  She was not a happy donkey.

I am praying tomorrow goes better when she can be put into the barn before the sun sets.  Here's to hoping that she was see the barn in a new light come daylight.