Emily, one of our older donkeys at the Refuge, asked me why I’m not blogging any more. All the girls hew hawed in support and said that it was outrageous that I didn’t use my writing talents to best advantage. I agreed but I put it down to that pesky human, Susan, who introduced me to Facebook and it is so much easier to post a short comment and a photo each day. “BUT where does that get us” said Byed our older white donkey. “Lots of likes and
what good are those to us”. I agreed and told them all that was why I handed the Facebook content back to the humans because a lot of ‘friends’ didn’t even understand I was a donkey, someone thought they were talking to Susan’s husband. “Heaven help our hooves” screamed young Jerry “what is the paddock coming to!”

Which brings me on to life in the paddock and another reason that I have not been blogging, I’ve just been too busy. I now have 7 mules, and can’t those mules eat, and 28 donkeys with another booked to come in this week. I have to be on hand to oversee building work and help my newfavourite human, Touffik, with feeding three times a day.

“Yipes, whats that” shouted one of the mules as Susan came running across the paddock to consult with us. Maybe consult is overgenerous because all she could do is shriek at me “Tommy, get writing, there’s money in this blogging lark”. We all stood stunned, what is she on about now. Charles strolled past and muttered something about it being another hair brained idea. But then I got to thinking, the humans hate having to rely on donations to feed us; they think it is like begging and there are far too may worthy causes in the world that they don’t want to compete with. Mind you, my amazing supporters, don’t give up donating just yet!

The humans started rattling on about the plight of overworked animals being the result of greed and poverty in the world, Susan even mentioned the word ‘Capitalism’. “Now don’t go there” said Charles “you promised to keep politics out of this”. So she calmed down, Charles told us that she was mellowing in old age! But not to be beaten she then explained that there was nothing unethical about trying to get a bit of advertising on my blog if it helps the food bill. “OK….” I said and reconciled myself to honing my writing skills and giving it a whirl.