Saving Simon (8 page)

It took about four minutes. I was checking e-mail on my iPhone when I saw Simon trot down the slight incline through the gate. In a few seconds he was alongside of me. I gave him a carrot. I love the smell of the meadow, and Simon seemed to like it, too. The smell of fresh grass is sweet, and I am sure he was drawn to it. In the distance, the village of West Hebron twinkled in the sun.

Down in the valley, cows spread out over a pasture. A large tractor collecting the first-cut hay was behind them in another field. The blackflies had come out, but not the horseflies. Butterflies were making their little whirlpool circles all over the meadow, and overhead, I heard the lonely and piercing cry of a hawk circling for mice and rabbits. It is one of the loneliest sounds in the world, I told Simon, and one of the most beautiful.

Once again, I could not help talking to Simon. There is something about a donkey that is companionable, that will open you up, especially if the donkey is Simon, raised from the dead to live a fully appreciated life.

Simon chewed his carrot thoughtfully and took in his surroundings. He looked somewhat wistfully out into the other pasture, where Lulu and Fanny were standing still, watching. I see, I said. You are probably lonely, probably have been ever since you left your farm, your family, your child.

Of course he was. Donkeys are herd animals; they are never at ease being alone. They are often used to keep horses company and to guard sheep, but they need other donkeys in their lives. I had learned this from Carol.

Watching the news, it sometimes seems we live in a cold,
angry, and violent world. If you have a rescue donkey who loves people, it seems like a warm and compassionate one.

My community—my friends, neighbors, blog and book readers—responded to Simon and his healing. I got letters from schoolkids, apples sent via UPS from Oregon, Facebook messages, e-mails, e-cards, flowers, bags of grain. I got blankets woven by donkey lovers. And visits from those in my immediate world. Simon touched people. There are rivers of compassion out there.

Simon and I began walking together regularly. It wasn’t quite a straight line we followed—it never is with donkeys, even if you lead them by a halter. I explained butterflies to Simon; I waved to the UPS driver coming down the road to the farmhouse. I told Simon about how he delivered packages almost every day, and somehow I found myself explaining the Internet to him.

Scott, the UPS driver, honked and pulled over. I introduced him to Simon, and he waved. I would soon grow familiar with the sight of Simon over at the pasture gate, getting a carrot from Scott.

On one of our walks, Simon proved interested in several things: some nettles—painful weeds for humans to touch—were growing by the fence, and he went over to sniff them and eat a few. He was transfixed by a giant limb that had fallen off of a tree, and sniffed every inch of it for ten minutes. And he seemed drawn to a big old rotting tree stump sticking out of the ground. He paused a few times to tear up some grass and to chew it carefully and thoughtfully. His tail flicked away some blackflies. He seemed to want to stay beside me, but paid no attention to me. Simon gave the impression of loving life, of appreciating another shot at it. He always reacted to things as if
he were seeing them for the first time. When he came up to a tree branch, he stared at it, sniffed it, nibbled on it as if it were the most miraculous thing in the world.

As we walked, I talked to Simon, speaking to him to encourage him to live and heal. It was more of a man-to-donkey thing, the age-old dialogue between strange men and asses. I explained that I was a writer. I told him about Lulu and Fanny. I told him the story of how Maria and I met. I told him I would be putting a halter on him soon, and we would be taking walks into the woods, and perhaps down the street into the town.

The morning of that first walk, I had brought Rose out into the pasture with me, and as we got out into the field, she came near. Simon put his ears down and charged at her. I yelled at her to get away—Simon could have stomped her into pulp in a second—and she ran off. I noticed that Simon did not like dogs, and dogs did not like him. Rose went back to the barn and stayed there.

Simon and I had gone about fifty yards on our walk that day. I had to be careful not to tire him. Also, if he refused to go back into his corral, I didn’t really have a way of forcing him. Halters don’t work well on donkeys if they don’t want to move. They just stare at you while you pull.

I decided to be subtle. I turned around slowly and began walking in the opposite direction. Back to the corral. Once there, I would just put some grain in a can and Simon would come readily. I just didn’t want him to get up on that hill, or to trot over to where the girls, Fanny and Lulu, were standing, still staring.

I walked back a few feet, touching the pocket where one
carrot remained. Simon looked up at me, went off a few feet to explore some brush and nibble some leaves, and then turned slowly and started walking toward me.

There is a point with many animals—dogs, for sure, and, I believe, donkeys, too—where a strong attachment is formed, where you belong to one another, where there is a mutual sense of trust. Donkeys are intensely loyal and affectionate creatures in their own way. They love to serve and connect to their humans. And they are exquisitely sensitive. Simon and I had already been through a powerful bonding process—there are few ways to be more intimate than Simon and I had been these past few weeks as I was caring for him. He had decided to trust me, and I recognized as he followed me back to the corral that I wasn’t really just tricking him. Sure, he wanted the carrot, but more than that, he wanted to be with me. I represented something to him: sustenance, affection, his new life.

When we got back to the corral, we had been gone about forty-five minutes. I closed the gate. Simon went to the water trough to drink some water. He and I gazed out at the rich valley below us—the view from Bedlam Farm is beautiful—and we saw the cattle vanishing in a fine mist as the temperature dropped and the wind came up. He snorted a bit, nuzzled me with his nose, permitted me to brush him, and then lay down suddenly, exhausted. This was where he would remain for the night, I imagined. He looked up at me as if he wanted me to sit down with him, and perhaps he did. I suspect it was lonely out there at night for a donkey. No donkeys, no people.

Good evening Simon, I said. Thanks for the walk. Thanks for the company. I sat down next to him and broke the last carrot up into a few pieces. Tomorrow will be a big day for us, I said. I’ve seen you looking at Lulu and Fanny. I’ve seen them
looking at you. Tomorrow, you will meet them. I will bring them in the far side of the barn, and put up a mesh gate between you and them.

I had seen the girls and Simon staring at one another, heard the soft braying back and forth. There was a sense of expectation in all three of them, as if they knew their lives were about to change.

You will get to know each other that way, I told Simon. You’re not ready to be with them yet, but if things go well, perhaps in a couple of weeks you can join them and all be in the same field.

That night, I read Simon “The Sweetheart,” from
Platero and I
.

The story is a sad one, recounting how Platero had to walk or ride past a burro he loves. She was behind a fence and up on the hillside. Platero always wants to go and see her, but his master tells him regretfully that he has no choice but to oppose his loving instincts. Platero’s fair beloved watches him pass, as sad as he, her black eyes filled with reproaches.

Unwillingly, Platero trots ahead, trying at every opportunity to turn back, his every step a heartbreak.

I had seen Simon stare longingly at the girls, far up in the other pasture, as if they were some distant thing in a faraway land, beyond his reach, beyond his life.

That will change soon, I said. They will soon be a part of your life. Donkeys are herd animals; they don’t care to be alone. But anyone who knows donkeys also knows they are romantics. They are quick to fall in love. They have great big hearts.

SIX
 

Early the next morning,
we let Lulu and Fanny into the south side of the barn. Simon was out in the corral on the north side, and there was a large door with a ramp on his side. The middle of the barn had a wooden gate with wire mesh that could be swung shut. We used it to separate sheep or to lock up the donkeys before the farrier or the vet came.

Maria and I had talked to vets and farriers and donkey lovers about the acclimation process and were told more or less what we had guessed ourselves. Simon and the girls should not be thrown in together suddenly. They needed to get used to one another, to sniff each other and get everybody’s smells straight. We planned to open up the side doors of the barn in the daytime and let the three of them check one another out as much as they wanted.

The barn permitted the three to be much closer than simply looking at each other from their different pastures. When Simon was stronger and two or three weeks had gone by, we would put them all together.

We knew donkeys well, and we had talked to other people who understand equines. Horses and donkeys are not, as a rule, gentle to newcomers. There are days, even weeks, of biting, kicking, bumping, and edginess over food.

Simon was gelded, but he didn’t know it, and when the girls were in heat—they had not been spayed—there would probably be some excitement. Donkey romance is not gracious or delicate—there are no roses or poems or walks in the parks. It is also common for donkeys to greet newcomers by turning and kicking them in the head.

Around ten
A.M.
, we checked on Simon, gave him his meds, and then opened up the barn door. Lulu and Fanny were waiting at the gate, peering through the slats, their heads down. Simon walked quickly into the barn and then, eyes wide, walked up to the fence. The girls and Simon sniffed one another for the longest time. Lulu’s ears went back, but Fanny’s didn’t. Simon stood preening near the gate. We came back a few hours later and they were all still where we had left them. In the late afternoon, everybody got hungry. Lulu and Fanny went back up the hill to their pasture, and Simon went out to his corral to graze. We closed up the barn, enough for that day.

In the evening, I came out for my final check on Simon. He was standing up on the rise behind the barn, looking up the hill. Lulu and Fanny were in the pole barn staring back.

I heard Fanny’s soft bray, and then Simon’s louder response.

Simon seemed different to me. He seemed more alive, more intense. His eyes had a sparkle and focus I hadn’t seen before. His chest was puffed out a bit.

I was excited for him. A donkey’s life was not complete without the presence of other donkeys. And Simon could use some romance in his life. I worried a bit about the girls. They had led picture-perfect lives to this point. They had been raised
in a clean and beautiful barn by a knowledgeable breeder and had come to Bedlam Farm when they were both quite young. They had acres of pastures to roam, hills to climb, brush and rocks to stand on and explore. Every morning they came down for their treat; every afternoon they consented to be brushed.

They guarded the sheep faithfully and tolerated the border collies chasing the sheep around. In the seven years that I had had Lulu and Fanny, no fox, coyote, or stray dog had entered our pasture or taken a sheep. And Maria and I had both spent countless hours sitting with them, brushing them, sharing donkey daydreams with them. As our friends often joked, it was a perfect arrangement for them—plenty of grass, no men.

It was in the natural order of things for them to be with a male, though, and natural enough for Simon. The sniffing at the gate went well, but we really couldn’t know how it would go when all three were together.

I liked to think that Simon was getting his family back, both in donkey and human terms. But we had learned many times not to make any assumptions about what animals would do. There are plenty of animal experts around—lots of people who know for a fact what animals are thinking, what they will do. And there are even more animals around to demonstrate that they are unpredictable and unknowable. It is clear what they will do only when you see them do it.

Three weeks later, Simon was stronger. His coat was growing in, the blackened patches on his skin receding. His legs were a bit bowed and funky, but they were getting him around. He and I were taking daily walks around the pasture, and I soon hoped to graduate to the roads and the woods beyond the pasture gate. He was off all of his medications and free of the need for salves
and ointments. The rest of his healing was in the hands of time and nature. There was no question he would survive; it was time for him to live a normal life. By now, I was posting the “Call to Life” videos up on the Internet several times a week, and many thousands of people started their day with Simon’s bray.

It was a rare day he didn’t have visitors. Simon was a ham. He loved a crowd and almost any kind of attention. It was time to take him out of his corral and out into the world. To live with the girls.