"Excuse me, have you seen my ass?"

Some of you know that I moved Dexter and The Donkey (aka Raya) to my house a few weeks ago. Sarah and Cynthia wanted to bring their horses to the ranch, so I called Janine and asked if we had room for them (Janine IS the barn guru after all.) Because we haven't finished fencing the new pastures, Janine's answer was a resounding NO. No room in the Inn.

So I made room. I hooked up the trailer, loaded up the ponies, and took them to my back yard.

Interestingly enough, we own the one lot in our subdivision that can have horses--or whatever else we might want. We joked for years about getting chickens and goats, to the chagrin of our neighbors, of course. We never really thought the backyard would hold anything but two rambunctious dogs. Guess anything is possible.

I didn't know exactly what would happen when I unloaded Raya and Dexter and unleashed them on my backyard. I unhooked their halters, and....

they grazed.

After a little while, they found the roomy back porch and decided it made a good run-in shelter. They used the chair cushions as play toys. They became fond of looking in the windows. They made a game of stalking the cats. They conned our neighbors into giving them carrots over the fence. Raya even discovered that she could start braying early in the morning loud enough to get me hustling to get her food.

They were happy.

But then space opened up for them at the ranch once again, so today I backed my trailer into my driveway and prepared to load up the babies and take them back "where they belong."

I have a feeling, however, that Dexter has known for some time exactly where he belongs: the living room. And since he hadn't had a chance to guilt-trip us into letting him inside, Dexter was certain that his stay at the homestead was not over. He refused to get on the trailer. Now, this is a pony that has walked with me into the breakroom at the ranch while I got a drink from the fridge. The same pony that we took to the NWFAC Christmas party and walked him past a mechanical bull to a tiny room and had his picture made with Santa. The pony that has always stepped right up into the trailer.

After about fifteen minutes, he finally loaded. Brat.

I was worried, though, about Raya. At the ranch, Janine and Josh had to get behind her with a butt rope and push while I pulled. But today, I had only my husband, Allen, with me.

My main concern was that Raya might bolt, something she does with glee whenever she gets the whim. And once she has decided to bolt, that's it. You can hang on and go for a bumpy ride, but there's nothing you can do to stop her.

At the ranch, it's no big deal. If she bolts, she bolts. There's no where for her to go. But in my front yard, if she took off, there would be a donkey loose in the neighborhood.

"I'd have to go door to door," I told my mom, "asking people if they had seen a donkey."

My mom stifled a laugh. "Or 'Excuse me, have you seen my ass?'"

"Mom!" I exclaimed.

"Hey, it's from your mom. It's in the Bible."

(I'm still cracking up about that.)

As it turned out, Raya was fairly easy to load. Once she had her front feet on the ramp, I called my son Matthew over to help. He grabbed one end of a lead rope and Allen held the other. They had barely touched her and she walked right into the trailer.

Now the backyard seems just a bit too empty, though I'm sure the grass is taking a sigh of relief--what's left of it, that is. I know Raya and Dex are better off at the ranch--or at least my backyard is better off now that they are AT the ranch. But I'll sure miss Raya braying in the morning and seeing Dexter sacked out on the lawn, sound asleep.