Rain: guess which animals know how to come in out of it?

This morning it rained for the second time since early August. Isn't it a wonderful thing to see, hear, and smell?

It's the first time it's rained since Jethro the donkey has lived here. He's furious. I'm sure he thinks the rain is another of my perfidious schemes.

He has (as you know) a lovely shed, but he's afraid of it. He was standing looking drenched and miserable out in the grass. I cut two apples into small pieces and walked out into the squishy field and held them out. He followed me speedily until I got to the shed. Then, slower and slower. Eventually greed won out over fear; I managed to lure him into the shed, retreating into the far corner and feeding him apple pieces over and over.

When the apples were gone and apple fever subsided, he noticed it was still raining. He turned and looked out at the downpour. What a dilemma! He realized he was dry (good) but in the shed (bad).

I was trapped in the shed behind him for a while, because (a) I didn't want to discourage his noticing that he was dry and (b) he was stamping irritably and I didn't want to get stamped.

When I finally left, he, aggravatingly, left too. He's standing in the rain now.

So are the big Buckeye chickens.

So the intelligence prize goes to the tiny Java chickens: they ran into in their filing cabinet and are perfectly dry.