"Love follows knowledge."
"Beauty above all beauty!"
– St. Catherine of Siena

Monday, August 17, 2015

Photo Essay: Donkeys in the Desert

A few months ago, on a business trip to Arizona, while driving on a back road in the desert I came upon some wild donkeys.  Here are two pictures I was able to snap from the car before they got frightened and galloped off.









Handsome creatures who amazingly can live in that environment.

10 comments:

  1. Wow, very cool that you got to have that moment! I hope to someday get to see the western part of the country.

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    1. Just farther north is prettier ;-)

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    2. Yeah, and you can pretty much see jackasses 24/7!

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  2. Great photos, Manny.

    We have a place in England, the New Forest, which is a bit like your photos and it has wild horses roaming free everywhere. They walk around freely in the villages as if they own the place. I suppose they do.

    God bless.

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    1. I didn't realize you had a place like that in England. I looked it up. For those interested, go here:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Forest

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    2. I was at the New Forest two weeks ago. It's so peaceful and quiet in places. The article you posted from wikipedia - right at the end on the right, there's a photo of ponies walking through Burley, one of the many villages in the New Forest. I was at Burley and it is just as shown in the photo. Horses come out of the woods and walk where they want and the traffic has to stop. Tourists stop too, come out of the souvenir shops and take photos. I bet the horses have signed a contract with some advertising agency nearby to attract tourists.

      Imagine sitting on the grass to have a picnic and horses walk around you as tame as can be.

      In some places of the Forest there are wild cattle roaming free too.

      And the good thing ... you can go there for FREE. You drive in through special gates and park in specified areas and then you can walk or cycle. (Plenty of hire cycle shops). Some car parks charge a moderate fee - but not all.

      The people I was with were more interested in taking photos of horses rather than me. No taste I suppose.

      God bless.

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    3. That sounds like a really cool place. If I ever get to England again I'll have to consider going there. But I bet there's a bunch of horse poop all around. I bet one has to make sure where where to step.

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    4. Good question. Oddly enough ... NO. I saw no horse poop at all. Certainly not in the villages like in Burley. I never thought about poop; but I suppose someone keeps the place clean for the tourists' sake. Houses in Burley and other villages in the New Forest are VERY expensive. It's considered a posh area where to live.

      I have no doubt that in the wilderness proper there will be poop. But as you drive through, and in the car parks it was very clean.

      You've really set me thinking, Manny. We drove for miles, crossing wilderness on either side of the road, yet there was no poop on the road itself. Do you think they trained the animals to poop elsewhere?

      Nearby, there's also a great seaside resort called Bournemouth. Well worth a visit. In Bournemouth there's an area called Sandbanks. Houses there, by area, (e.g. square meter), are the 4th most expensive in the world.

      See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbanks We took the ferry accross the bay for a lovely drive to Corfe Castle, (or the remains thereof).

      God bless.

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    5. No horse poop? Are they real horses? Perhaps the locals devised realistically looking robotic horses to fool the tourists and save on hay and poop cleaners. :-P

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