A nice, if pedantic, visit

I was really surprised when Maren and Angela arrived today. That's a long drive for people who never leave Wuppertal.

I had a nice spread of meats, veggies, cheeses, and pickled asparagus, three types of mustard, and fresh brotchen from the bakery. When they saw it they said, "You don't eat bread!" I said, "Right, you know that. I don't miss it."

I was thrilled when Maren asked about one of the cheeses - an aged white cheddar from Ireland that recently arrived in Germany and now, after so many years, I can get good old cheddar again! I'm slowly introducing more and more people to it and they can't believe how good it is.

Then I asked them what they wanted to do and Maren wanted to work with the donkey. Specifically, she wanted to do Parelli stuff with the donkey. And she did. For 2 hours! She did odd greeting rituals with her, insisting on haltering her herself, and flapped the rope against her and she explained how you increase the pressure til you get what you want, and I said, "But that won't work with a donkey. They do not feel pain. You could light a fire under her and she'd say, 'my it's warm out'."

And so Maren learned about cats. Donkeys. Same thing *lol*

She really wanted to work on something I was having trouble with, and I said, "I can't get her into a horse trailer, and she also won't go into our house, which she thinks of as a horse trailer, I think. So see if you can get her in my house, we have no steps."

2 hours later she had two hooves in but that was it. That's about as far as I'd gotten her too, with many, many treats.

Mag had never been left behind by the donkey, but since they were in view of the paddock gate, it was no problem. I haltered him just to keep him back from the gate when she came and went.

Something very interesting happened, in our minds, well, Angela's and mine. Mag was very upset when the donkey just left without him for the first time ever. "She can't just leave me here!" but he watched and settled a little and then I wanted to show Angela our path to the pasture and other things so I threw the lead rope over Mag's back and left him there where he could watch the donkey refuse to be bribed into our house.

As I led Angela out on the path, Mag followed us. Why? We were leaving the donkey!

We got to the pasture and Mag just stayed with us. I thought that he was confused and thought I might be somehow finding another way to the donkey. *shrug* But as we stood there talking, Mag just hung out with us patiently and Angela said, "Do you see his connection with you? It's stronger than his connection to the donkey." I said, "I'm in a state of disbelief right now because I don't understand it."

Then Mag started to walk away from us, up the grazing strip to the street and Angela said, "He's got a lead rope over his back!" I said, "It's fine." But I worried he'd try to escape our pasture for the first time ever, because the donkey was not with him. So I called him, "Mag, come!" and he turned around and came to me, and followed us back to the paddock politely, not passing us on the narrow path.

I was amazed. However I believe he thought I could save him from his dilemma, and that is why he stayed with me rather than stay at the gate watching the donkey. Or ....no idea, but it was mind opening and let me feel another step closer to him.

Maren was not gonna give up, and I wondered what would happen if my husband came out of his office and saw the donkey standing with her head in the doorway. Then it happened, and J put his hands on his hips and said, "I don't want the donkey in the house." In English, I reassured him, "There's no way she's going in there, no worries!" See why I couldn't say that in German? Maren was right there sitting on our entryway tiles, using bananas as bribes.

Finally Maren did some other types of ground work in our driveway, and took Bellis up the street a ways, while Mag freaked out a little. I held his lead rope so he wouldn't crash against Angela who was sitting on our stone wall, talking to me about her horsey life.

Angela is a sweet heart and again admitted to me she's only been around horses for 2 years, and feels a little put down upon by the others at the barn. I had no idea, but she said, "People there talk. About everyone else."

Then she said she fell off her lease horse (Maren's husband's horse, Blue) a couple weeks ago and is afraid to ride, so she's working with the trainer Kati on just ground work. I said, "You are relatively new, and you don't have it easy - Blue is not easy, from what Maren tells me, and what I've seen."

Amazing to me that a Paint horse can be so wound up. I would not ride that horse for anything. His owner rides him out 5 nights per week, and Angela rides him 3 times per week, so the horse is worked more than once per day, as is the case with so many of those horses with leases. They never get a day off (and that's a good thing!).

I feel bad for Angela but she is in a good community, at least I hope she feels that way. She's so sweet and unassuming and loves to talk, and we had nothing else to do for 2 hours as Maren sat on my floor and the donkey stood in the doorway.

My husband passed by again and said, "I really don't approve."

I told Angela if my donkey breaks our flooring, I'll have to fix it myself somehow.

Then Maren was finally done and brought Bellis back. She said, "Does she ever hee-haw?" I said, "You wanna hear?" "OH YES!"

Oh, poor donkey, I went for the laptop and you know what I did. I played a YouTube video of a donkey braying, which causes her to bray horribly, ear-splittingly loudly, and Maren and Angela were standing right in front of her at the time. It went on and on, and it's not a hee-haw, it's a dinosaur. It's the worst noise you can imagine. When she was finally done they both cracked up laughing so loud! They had no idea. I giggled, but said, "Sorry Bellis."

Then Mag had had enough of all this waiting around and he herded Bellis to the pasture. But Bellis wanted to stay with our guests, who'd been brushing her favorite spots, massaging her ears, making her feel like a queen. But Mag won, with his ears pinned unattractively. She complied and they went to pasture, but it was (surprise) only a grazing strip cuz they'd been out all morning.

Then Maren wanted to see our pasture and we joined the animals, and they crowded around us as I explained how my animals are on pasture all Winter, but Summer it's only the grazing strips, opposite of what most people do here.

Mag hung out with us and Maren said, "I would have bought him, even though he's the wrong color. My heart would have gone out to him and I could not have resisted him! Look at him, and his character!" I said, "Good to know, if I need to sell him. He needs fans, in case something happens to me." I wanted to tell her, this is the way Arabians are! It's a breed trait to be very much like dogs in their attraction to people. I hate to make generalizations but I really think Germans don't know what the Arabian breed is like. Mag is typical, but he's also super laid back, which helps him make good impressions on people.

Then we started walking back through the path and Mag followed us, but I reassured them that he is not allowed to pass on the path, because it's too narrow and that would be rude. Maren understood and started testing Mag, slamming to a stop in front of him to see if he'd stop. Of course he did, he knows the rules. I laughed and told her, "He won't be pushy, he knows!"

I think she was having fun exerting her Parelli stuff onto my animals, but I admit, it got a little pedantic when she forced me to hold onto a halter and she held the rope and showed me the releases she does, and the pressure, yes, blah blah blah I've heard it all before, but I'm not gonna shut her down. After she was done, I said, "This is exactly how I trained Mag to get into Christina's trailer, so I know how effective it is. He gets in trailers reliably now."

But try to get the donkey into my house.....

I had hoped we'd go out for a walk or something but I wasn't going to dictate the day after they came so far, I let them choose, and Maren chose donkey, so that was it.

The donkey really likes her, seems to have bonded with her, and it was funny to see Mag "steal" her back from Maren.

She sat on the wall and talked and puffed on her e-cig which Bellis found fascinating! You should have seen Bellis' face! What is that sound and smell and steam coming from my friend!

I think it was fun for Maren today. A little less for Angela who was the driver and had no agenda.

I hope we see each other again. Maren said she'd have her husband bring their horses in their fancy French horse trailer all the way here so we can ride together. If that happens, I'd be thrilled, but I'm not holding my breath.

And Chinook and Blue here? Mag will definitely be the grown up in the group! Yikes.


J's mom gave me some tulips and they chose to bloom on the very day I had guests. Not sure if they noticed, but I was thrilled.



The cat says, "You like my flowers? These are my flowers. Cuz this is my yard. You just sometimes come out here. I'm always out here."







Yes these are new this year.



This one is also new. I grant you that.



I was laughing, "How cute can she be?" as I backed away toward the house.



Then I got the photo of my life, cat-wise. No way! She was running toward me and I somehow captured it. I laughed so hard! I love the scraggly shadows from the still-naked Walnut tree. That still-naked thing makes me happy cuz it means it's not gonna be sweltering hot, just perfect.

She looks like she's on a mission to fight neighborhood crime, but you know what? She was just running to get to me as I reached her favorite thing, her catnip plant, which is again putting up new leaves that intoxicate her. Ah, smoke em if you got em. She was soon rolling.



She found some hay I'd discarded, I'd never seen her there before. Let us take a lesson from cats in how to always put comfort first! : )