The naming story for our new mini donkey!

A few days after George arrived I asked him if he was happy with his name or did he maybe want another one?

I immediately heard, "Master." And then, "As in master teacher."

I was rude and laughed out loud before thinking. This was in the early days of him wanting to push me and nip me.

Uhhh...no. Sorry buddy, I think not.

Also, I'm not yelling, "Master! Rayn! Wynter!" across a field. Can you imagine?!

I looked up synonyms and found: guru or sage. Meh. Not so much. I thought about going the Star Wars route with Yoda (and the ears, come on!) or Obi Wan. But nothing fit.

And then this week ManChild came in from doing evening chores and told us that Jaffee was being super snuggly.

Huh?

He's always giving nicknames to the animals (Wonder where he gets that from! People are always so surprised that Little Man is not our original donkey's name—it's Sweetness :-)) But this was a new one so I wasn't sure who he was referring to.

He said, "That's George's real name. It just came to me when I was out with him."

I was thrilled and it immediately seemed right! This same thing happened back in 2016 when we first moved to our Colorado farm. We only had Rayn and a big, red, ex racehorse mare named Secret Venture. I felt she needed a fresh start at our healing ranch with a new name but hadn't heard one from her yet.

One day I asked 9 year old Man Child and he stopped, closed his eyes, turned his head away for a moment and then opened them and said, "Her name is Celita."

I Googled it, choosing the spelling that seemed right and found that it means, "A little piece of heaven."

Wow.

So, I googled Jaffee and found it means, "Beautiful, pleasant." ❤️

I went out on Thursday and asked him about his new name and he immediately said it was, "Master Jaffee." Gawd. 😂

Ok then, Master Jaffee but Jaffee for short lol. It is interesting though, how much I've learned since he arrived just 3 weeks ago. I think he's probably right, he is going to be a master teacher for me and maybe for clients as well.

Coaching clients often ask if my horses and donkey were trained for this healing work and I always say no, they just do it naturally. A lot of equines will if given a chance. I've actually never had one I had to train until Jaffee. He's shown me he has the ability, but he's young yet and hasn't been exposed at a very young age like Little Man who started seeing the work as a yearling. I've been talking to him about how soft and thin skinned people are compared to another donkey and how he has to be extra gentle with us. On Thursday I sat on a short little stool that put me at eye level with him. He and I were alone and he gave me some root chakra and then several hugs with his head over my shoulder and pulling me in :-) It was so sweet! A few times I had to stand up when he wanted to play with me like I was a donkey but over all it was a really great session!

And! As you can see from the video above, Jaffee and Little Man have started playing together! YAY! That's a heavy duty rubber feed pan they are carrying around. And at the end, when Jaffee gets too rambunctious, Little Man shows him that wasn't okay, that's not how the game is played, and turns his back on him to let him know. What's interesting was that I just read about that and started using that with Jaffee last week!

OTHER THINGS AROUND THE RANCH:

A friend sent this to me and seriously, I need this for my bathroom!

Asiatic Dayflower at the edge of the forest:

American Beautyberry. Humans can eat the berries but they are pretty acidic—apparently makes a great jelly/jam:

The Polar Bear (her name is really Tessa lol):

OMG!:

The muscadines are RIPE! These are the ones that taste like 1980s grape bubble gum:

Across my pond I saw one of the girls from the big barn next door, laying on her haltered horse bareback. Love that so much. Had to zoom in so no real detail but still so sweet:

MEMORIES:

Found these of my girlie—I ADORE her. She was 7 years old here:

ONE MILLION MEMES!

Uhhh...yeah. Daughter's Day and Son's Day? I'm sorry, but that's every day. Love him a million and a zillion (as my mom would say) but that's a big nope on the made up holidays lol. I'm doing good to manage the real ones.

Thanks for loving me for my weirdness! :-)

B-Rad and I have been discussing how to replace a fan in the same way.

I'm kidding! But we really do need to replace a fan in the same position and install a matching one on the other side. We haven't yet been able to figure out how to safely do it.

The one that made me laugh the hardest and longest:

And finally:

Bonus points if you know what movie this is from!