Surprises

For most of my life I have hated surprises. I just started to enjoy a good surprise a few years ago. Surprises really challenged my type A personality and I found them to be inconvenient if not stressful. Mustering excitement in a situation where my mind was overcome with anxiety was never easy. One nice thing about moving into the forest and working with animals is that my type A personality has been curbed. Nature can not be controlled and is rarely predictable. Mother Nature is the master of surprise and the cost of living among her beauty is to accept her gifts, whenever and however they come. The list of surprises I have experienced these past few years is long, but each one has helped me better understand myself and to embrace life as it comes. I wake up each day, do all that I can, practice gratitude, and carry on knowing the next suprise is going to hit me any minute., for better or worse.

A great surprise recently happened. When picking up Bernie and Penny, our two new adopted Burros, I was told Penny was actually carrying a foal. Needless to say I am over the moon. I had seen photos of Penny and selected her with the hunch that she may be expecting. Nonetheless it was only a guesstimate and hearing confirmation that a baby burro was on board felt like a once in a lifetime surprise. There are no words to express the joy I feel about raising a burro from birth. To think that Penny will deliver her foal here at Not By Luck Ranch, not a BLM holding pen, with all of us loving and caring for her is profoundly precious. I can’t wait to meet this surprise baby burro.

I will always be a type A but I have learned to roll with, walk through and even enjoy life’s surprises. Nature reminds me over and over that life is unpredictable and to worry about that is just a waste of time. My chore list is long, the days are short but I believe the best surprises have yet to come. I hope you can find some time to join us for a goat adventure because I think you too will be pleasantly surprised :)