Juan Aparicio of Burrolandia Madrid cuts the tape with the official kitchen scissors to open the stable. The finishing touches to Phase 1 were done earlier in the day: the stable needed to be ready for windy wet conditions in September/October. (Phase 2 will be closing up the front and weather-proofing with proper stable door for the cold mountain conditions in winter.)
Rubí is first to arrive and see her new house, and all seemed to be going well as Juan’s family watched. Then it all went pear-shaped… but there are no photos of this because it all happened very quickly.
Rubí spotted Juan’s small family dog. The dog is quite used to donkeys as it is the Burrolandia dog. Unfortunately, Rubí didn’t know this. She just went into herd-protector mode and suddenly lurched at the small surprised dog and chased him at full speed along the whole of the top level terrace until he fled out of a small gap in the stock fence and appeared looking traumatized under the pergola. Meanwhile Rubí had made her way quickly to the stable where the others were already eating, unaware that they had all – once again – been saved from disaster by Rubí the donk with the special genius at spotting a potential threat to the herd.
Rubí safely in the stable eating, Juan Aparicio and host enjoy a relaxed moment laughing off the donkey dog incident. (I’ll speak to Rubí tomorrow.)
It is good to have this stage of the work done with two weeks to go before I return to work. Now I can concentrate on the fencing of the lower level terraces. Maybe I can find time for a day on the beach too?
Finally, the pergola provides a great place to welcome guests. Here it is prepared for Juan and family this evening. Thanks again to Cait for suggesting it and Carl for making it!
Equus Asinus 
Looks very neat and professional. Good to see you are using solar panels. Very techno.
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Great work, Gareth. Now you, friends, and the donkeys can enjoy it. (Hope you do get a day at the beach.)
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I haven’t really mentioned the solar energy system, deliberarely at first as I didn’t want to draw attention to it. There are battery thieves out there and when they see panels – which themselves are not worth nicking – they follow the wires and raid the battery store. My batteries cost thousands but scrap merchants would pay thieves about €200 for them! So to begin with I tried to avoid including the solar panels in photos on the blog. Then my friend Carl pointed out that the desperadoes who raid battery stores are not the sort of people who read donkey blogs… So I’ll do a blogpost soon on my eco-friendly energy efficient house!
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Oh yes, I WILL have my day on the beach. I think I deserve a break now. I have gone from the stable to the start of fence posts on Level 2 and it is too hot for this!
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Stable looks very smart and will be nice and cosy in the winter too when it is all finished. Hats off to you – that is one piece of good work! If you like Gin, you’ve earned a large one 🙂
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