Woodstone Prairie

…although Tilly mistook it for one the other day. 

It’s amazing how hard a donkey can bite when they think they are biting an apple.

It’s also pretty amazing how stupid I can be. It’s a good thing our animals are good natured and very forgiving of my barnyard cluelessness.

Here’s what happened…

I’d gone out to the pasture with a leftover apple of M’s. He’d taken maybe 4 bites out of it and decided he didn’t want it anymore. Rather than waste it I took it out to the animals.

Blaze and both donkeys were up at the barn, so I just walked into the pasture, held out the apple, and said “First one here gets it.”. Not they understood what I was saying of course, I just like to talk to them. (Honestly, after a full day of M’s disconnected conversations, and R’s compulsive question asking, I LOVE talking to to creatures who can’t talk!)

There was no mad dash for the apple, but the animals did start meandering down to see what I had, and Tucker, my little wild man, was the first one to get to me.

An important part of this story is that there is a definite barnyard pecking order. Blaze is on top… He can, and will, take food from the donkeys, and they get out of his way when he lays his ears back and gives them the “Look”. Tilly is next in line, and Tucker is on the bottom. Everybody takes food away from Tucker.

I wasn’t thinking about the pecking order though, I was thinking how nice it was that Tucker got there first, and that this would be a good opportunity to build a little more trust with him. 

Since I hadn’t taken the time to cut the apple first, I just held it out to him the way we do with the horses… letting him grab it and bite a chunk off so he wouldn’t try to eat it whole. 

That was the stupidity part… donkeys are not horses, and no one told Tucker to just take a bite. So Tucker bit into the apple and tried to walk away with it. Unfortunately, Tilly got there at about that same time and also reached out to bite the apple. But since it was already in Tucker’s mouth  she bit my hand instead. 

It was an honest mistake… my hand was all wet with apple juice, and tasted and smelled like apple, so poor Tilly held onto her prize. 

But that left me standing out in the pasture still holding the apple that is being tightly held in Tucker’s mouth, while Tilly is holding on just as tightly to my hand, and both donkeys are pulling away, trying to keep their treat. 

Ohhh, Tilly has a nasty bite to her! 

I was able to drop the apple, but Tilly still thought my hand was the treat and kept biting down and pulling away. I had to resort to kicking her in the shoulder to get her to let loose. It took two kicks but she finally let me have my now slightly mangled hand back.

My hand still works, nothing is broken, thank goodness… My thumb looked pretty rough the first day, it was dented in and shaped funny, but now it’s just a little swollen and bruised.

Tilly was nice and hasn’t held a grudge about getting kicked… but she must have wondered about these strange humans. They make a big deal about offering you a treat, but when you try to eat it they take it back and even kick you to get it!  

 ~

So anyway, that’s the story of my hand being mistaken for an apple.

Stay tuned for Sweet Pea’s Tips for Staying Cool on a Hot Day!