Fenced In (Almost)

Tuesday, when I got home from work, I found this…

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Really, donkey? Outside of the fence… napping. It’s like he’s just doing it on principle at this point.

Luckily The Day of the Fence had almost arrived. Two guys with a truck full of fencing supplies showed up and had this done in short order…

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At that point it looked like it might be an easy project. (<— blatant foreshadowing)

I was already second guessing myself on hiring this project out– not because they weren’t doing a great job, but because they made it look so easy that I was all, “Shit, I could totally have done that in a weekend.”

And then, right where the fence was supposed to take a sharp left, we hit a barn-sized snag. I mean that as literally as possible– a foundation from one of the old barns was buried under a foot of grass and dirt right where the posts were supposed to go.

I spent some time agonizing over these old aerials of the property with a ruler and tape measure trying to decide where we’d be safe to dig…

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Finally we ended up extending the fence another 30 feet before making the turn in a last-ditch effort to work around the old foundation…

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It worked in the same way that using a machete to open a beer bottle works… you get what you’re after, but it makes life significantly more difficult than it may have been otherwise.

But better than no beer.

This is definitely better than no fence.

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In the meantime, Doc was doing this.

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I still haven’t actually seen him escape. Every once in a while I just turn around and there’s a donkey minding his own business on the wrong side of the fence.

I expect this little routine to continue for the next few days at least, because with all of the split-rail challenges we were short on material, and it screwed up my existing spacing, which means I have to pull up the hundred feet of t-posts I sunk earlier this year and re-set them.

The moral of this story is 1.) even though I still have half the fence to put in on my own, I’m really glad I hired the hole-digging part out, and 2.) beer is better than no beer.

13 Responses

  1. I think Doc is behaving like a petulant teenager at this point. You say don’t and he does it just to show you he can because he knows his freedom is almost cut off. I have to laugh at people who say animals don’t have personalities. Doc is showing just how much personality he has! I been where you are with your animals so I can laugh now. Sorry.

  2. I don’t know how you get anything done. I would just be sitting around singing to the nuggets and hugging the fuzzy babies. I love your animals.

  3. Animals definitely have onery personalities once in a while. When I have to return my German Shepherd to his pen he suddenly has a million places in the yard that he forgot to mark! But when my boyfriend tells him to go to his pen he can’t get there fast enough! And it’s not like my boyfriend has ever been mean to him, he just obeys him instead of me!

  4. If Doc is like one of our horses, he listens for the pulse in the electrical fencing & when it’s between pulses, he picks up the top tape with his nose & steps through it. Just wait until he teaches your other donkey how to do it. I watched our guy show another one of the horses how to safely escape. LOL

  5. I think Doc knows you need something funny to write about. So glad you hired the job out!

  6. Perhaps he’s trying to puzzle out the philosophical question
    IS the grass greener on the other side?

  7. Beer is always good, post-hole digging labor help is terrific, T-post pullers are worth their weight in gold, and equine hugs are PRICELESS!

    PS. I’d love to know how Doc gets out of the electric fence. Can you put a donkey cam out there?

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