Life With Madeline (A Grandma's Brag): Memorial Day Weekend

AzBCR POST FROM LINDA:

Okay, you guys have been very patient in awaiting an up date. So get your popcorn out, sit back in your favorite chair and enjoy the latest adventure with Madeline . There is 31 pictures of the little stinkers in action, so if your checking out this post before I'm finished you'll just have to tune back in to see the rest of the pictures.

For the Memorial Day Weekend, we were up at our ranch up north, and it was Madeline's first time getting to see John Henry (little miniature donkey of my mother's, acquired from Susan (paintedpromise). John Henry is a month younger then Madeline.

This is John Henry come Saturday morning in one of our guest corrals, he had a corral all to himself with his big brother mule Floppy right next to him in another one.

And here is John Henry just a running and kicking up his heels with all the excitement of being somewhere new.....

I went to the barn to get Madeline, as she did not yet know he was here at the ranch. We had arrived on Friday night late, and my mother rolled in early Saturday morning. Ms. Madeline was quite surprised when she came out of the barn and followed me over to where John Henry was. I can tell you, she had the look on her face like "what, a donkey" and just stopped right in her tracks as she got close to his corral. This is Madeline in the barn right after I took her out of her stall inside the barn on our way to go see John Henry.

Here is Madeline and John Henry together in his stall, she just really did not know what to think when she first went in to see him. Her first reaction was to run over to me in the stall and stand behind me, plaster her ears back as he looked at her, then turned her butt to him and kicked up at him. I think Madeline has learned to like being the only donkey as she did not want to share her mom with him. After a few minutes though she started strolling around the stall with him .....and doing her favorite thing......roll in the dirt ...and John Henry doing his thing........

By this time, it was now time for us to get ready to put my mothers mule Floppy to work finishing up its team driving lessons with David's mule Earl............so I took the two little mini donkey monkies into the barn and put Madeline back into her barn stall to finish her breakfast, and between her is Gus in his stall, and put little John Henry in Earl's stall on the other side of Gus....... This way John Henry who has bonded very closely to Floppy (my mothers mule), and vice versa, would not be able to make brea noises for Floppy while he was working on his lessons . Lesson one here, in some ground drive training work on Floppy earlier, (while John Henry was still in his other guest stall by himself), as you got out of sight with Floppy in ground training and John Henry would brea......well, that was it, lesson was ALL over for Floppy as he would blow up and take off from you with ground lines and all to run back to John Henry.......Hence, the reason why the little monkeys had to go into the barn away from Floppys sight......so he could concentrate on bonding with Earl to finish his team driving lessons......So, here I go, taking the two little monkeys into the barn for awhile .

And here is John Henry in Uncle Earl's stall in the barn next to Uncle Gus....Boy ole Gus thought these things were multipling as he was flanked by one on each side of him.

And here is Uncle Gus saying hello to little John Henry......Gus has slowly come to love Madeline these days, and cries for her when she's off outside the barn running.......he was really nice with little John Henry too, and baby sat the both of them while Floppy and Earl were off team driving.

Later that day some ranch neighbors up the road from our place stopped in for a visit. They just had to see Madeline as they had heard all about her from other ranch neighbors, and got to visit with both Madeline and John Henry for a bit.....Here they are with Madeline.

And here with John Henry........

By this time of the day Earl and Floppy were done with team driving lessons, so Floppy was going to have to learn to drive single now. This mean't Earl for the time being was put in Floppys guest stall outside by himself for awhile. Then after a few hours when Floppy's single driving lessons were complete......that was a task , but we succeeded, we then let the little guys out of their barn stalls to run and play where ever they wanted.......They followed David over to Earl in the guest stalls......So that David could bring Earl back to his barn stall.

Of course there was lots of help on the way to the barn, as David stopped beside the horse trailer to brush out Earl, with John Henry right there wanting to know what he was doing.

And once the brushing was completed.......off Earl and John Henry went to the barn..........Little John Henry took a liking to Uncle Earl, even tried to nurse off him ONCE !!! Good ole Earl just stood there and looked at David like "Dad, we got a problem here".......he was so good with the little ones.

Oh, and in case you were all a wondering where Madeline was......she was on the other side of the rig just a having a ball........Here she is in all her glory . Just a running and a playing and "don't forget me"....

And John Henry helping Uncle David in the barn........

Oh, and here comes Madeline ........

All this playing makes us thirsty........Good thing we keep a bucket of water in the breeze way for them when they are off a romping.

And ...... more play outside the barn.........Yes, Ms. Madeline knows her way around and showed Little John Henry all of her entrances into the barn ....

Madeline ran back inside the barn to play hide and seek........while John Henry hid outside the door!!!

John Henry caught sight of Uncle David going to get the tractor.........so off he went......

And of course Madeline found her Dad with no problem............then decided to graze nearby as he worked.

More grazing for Madeline........While my mom gets John Henry ready to go for a walk with her dogs.

And...you ask, where was Madeline while John Henry went for his walk with his mom..........Madeline was playing with Dad while Dad played with his tractor;)