Been Busy

 At least that's my excuse for not keeping up with the blog.  It's not the only thing I'm not keep up with unfortunately........!!!! LOL  

Betsy has settled in pretty good, although some of her "I'm sweet and misunderstood" has worn off.  Beefy the mammoth thinks she's pretty cute and she seems to think he is the answer to a maiden's prayers.  He is much larger than she is and we're afraid he will hurt her.  He's also being very rough with the other boys that would like to get to know her better.  As long as he is around that's not going to happen.  Waylon and Roper have been the most loyal.  Waylon has tried to take charge of Betsy and run Beefy off.  Lots of kicking and rearing up, a little blood drawn but nothing real serious.  The last 3 or 4 days she stayed in her pen, so the boys wouldn't fight.  Beefy spent all day long and I assume the night too, standing by her gate, in case any of the other boys got any funny ideas.

This morning we let her out and kept Beefy in his pen for awhile.  All was quiet, so after an hour or so, we let Beefy out.  At first it seemed like a bad idea, lots of running and nonsense going on.  Let's put it this way, I'm glad we didn't have a tour this morning, some of the visuals bordered on being x-rated..........!!! LOL  But they finally settled down, Waylon seems to have given up and Roper is following them around in case something happens to elevate his status with Betsy.  Don't think that's going to happen, this morning when I let Beefy out, Bonnie was standing at his gate and he didn't even pay any attention to her as he took off looking for Betsy.  

Betsy bears watching, she is spoiled and expects treats and if they aren't forthcoming she gets really pushy.  It might take awhile to make her understand we aren't going to put up with that behavior. She has a lot of moxy or spirit or whatever you call it.  

Betsy chasing the golf cart  

She's very observant and very quick, which might become a problem with the driveway gate.  I don't think she'd run away, she's too nosy about what is going on here.  But that gate is really interesting........!! Especially when it opens and vehicles go back and forth.  

Justice and Boaz have been getting out.  John finds a spot in the fence, fixes it and they get out again.  Right now he's ran out of places, showing foot prints coming and going, Justice was out a long time yesterday, just roaming around on the outside of the perimeter fence.  John spent quite a bit of time today and hasn't been able to find where he's getting out.  Boaz actually stayed in yesterday, guess it wasn't as interesting out there as he thought it would be.  

 

Last week-end we spent 2 days out at the Mescal movie site for a Cowboy Christmas Festival.  Lots of people came by to see the donkeys.  A man named Larry sent us this wonderful picture he took of John and Bella. 

This time of year we can stay about as busy as we want to with parades and displays and we get calls for a donkey to carry Mary into church.  We've always turned them down, I can see how that could go really wrong.  

This is Willie Nelson in his younger days, on a wagon train outing.  He could probably do the church gig just fine.  But he's retired from working, and he's a pretty big boy, I'm not sure he would fit down the aisle of a church.  He went for his first outing at the Cowboy Festival last week-end.  We took 5 donkeys for the people to pet, and he seemed to enjoy all the attention.  He'll probably be one of our regulars, he's very well trained and quite a gentleman.