A rude awakening.

I hate waking up abruptly. This morning it was noises out on the deck. At first I thought it might be the cats jumping down from the railings but I after a few more heavy thumps I knew it was something bigger then a cat. I jumped out of bed to look out at the deck and was not surprised to see Emmie and Berk, our Anatolian shepherds, up on the deck knocking over chairs. I threw on some clothes and went outside to get them back in the pasture with the alpacas where they belong. I had taken about 5 steps across the deck when I saw through the railing the donkeys across the driveway on the side lawn! My heart stopped for a second... how did they get out? I went back to the bedroom and yelled to Neil that the donkeys where out and I needed his help.

If the donkeys were out on the lawn that meant the pasture fence was broken and the cows and male alpacas could be wandering around somewhere too! Since the donkeys were happily grazing I first dealt with Emmie and Berk. Berk followed me down to the barn and into his pasture but Emmie was more interested in exploring. I needed to rattle some food in her bowl to get her to follow me into the pasture. Once the dogs were secure I grabbed some donkey cookies and called to Mal and Inora. Thank goodness they have become treat hounds and followed me around to the back of the barn. And that is where I found the walk through gate wide open. So, at least it wasn't the fence that was broken just an open gate. A few more cookies and both donkeys were back in their pasture too. Then I quickly scanned the pasture to do a head count on the cows and alpacas and everyone was accounted for! Yeah!

By that time Neil had come down to the barn to get an update on the situation. The gate was easy enough to explain... last night during chores Evan went out the gate to go to the front of the barn while McKayla and I went through the cow stall in the barn. That gate is covered in no climb fencing to keep the goats from squeezing out and because of that it can be a hard pull to get it to latch fully. It must not have gotten latched all the way and the donkeys discovered it open and went exploring. I am just glad that no one else discovered it as well. As far as the dogs were concerned I was not sure yet about that. Neil went and walked their fence line and found where they had pushed the fence up and crawled under it again. A little bit of wire to tie the fence to the T-posts hopefully solved that problem too.

What a morning... I finished up chores and we had breakfast before we normally even wake up!

There were no eggs this morning.