Sister Golden Hair

It's been quite a while since we got down to Chehalis to visit Rick's cousin, Melinda and Danny, and their mini-donkey farm. No, the farm is not mini, it's the donkeys that are!

They have a shindig every year and always have the best food, Danny is a great BBQer. They seem to have seafood a lot but this time it was ribs and bread and salad. They also had munchies so when the meal was served we were already half full. But we thoroughly enjoyed the food nonetheless. I was so stuffed by the end that I could barely take a couple bites of the red velvet cake (which was amazing BTW!).

While we always enjoy the food it's the farm that we look forward to. You just never know what will be the "star" this time, one of the dogs? Or maybe the horse (which was recently sold)? This year it was a chicken named Sister Golden Hair.

I was so happy to see the chickens all out scratching the ground where the garden has been and will be again this year, once the weather warms up enough to plant. And Danny and Melinda kept pointing out one chicken, "Sister Golden Hair, she follows Melinda around and likes to ride on her shoulder even!" they'd say.

Part of the visit always includes having the border collies bring the herd of donkeys into the barn. This year was no different, it's always fun to watch those dogs work the herd. But when Melinda started to get out some of the yummy grain mix that she gives, I think mostly as a treat, the chicken began to take notice.

The first group to get the oat mix (does it have molasses on it?) was too large for the chicken to weave through but the next group only numbered 3. Melinda was walking toward a feeder while the dogs rounded up the 3 geldings but between Melinda and the donkeys was a cute golden chicken. They were all in a line and the chicken was in front.

Melinda scattered the feed into a metal trough feeder and the chicken jumped right in. She began pecking and you could hear every "peck - peck, peck!" The donkeys stayed at the opposite end of the feeder and when she had to shake her feathers they all scattered! "Wild chicken in our feeder!"

Besides the antics of the star chicken Danny kept demonstrating his new ring tone - a donkey bray! In response to the ring tone all the donkeys would chime in - most, if not all, the 15 or so of them! What a hoot!

And, of course, the dogs. Sweet Sadie finally died a year or so ago with her bedroom slipper feet, we miss her. But they have a cute pair of border collies, brother and sister named Fly and Rex (after characters from the move "Babe") and the newest addition, a border collie mix named Annie. Annie is a little too tightly wound and is always involved in everything. Her eyes are a little too wide open which goes along with her hyper-personality. She has a cute trick that they had to teach her to help cool her off since even heat exhaustion doesn't seem to slow her down. They tell her to go get in her "hot tub". Not hot, just a large drinking tub full of water. Silly girl goes over and lays down in it!

An extra object of entertainment this time was Melinda's cute blonde, blue-eyed 2-year-old nephew, Archer. He was a busy boy but pretty good for a 2-year-old. He was quite the mockingbird, he repeated EVERYTHING!

After everyone left Rick and I stayed on for another hour going over our Iceland picture book and giving some pointers on how to use their new DSLR.

Can't wait for next year's wing-ding! Thanks again, guys!