A Return To See The Miniature Donkeys

It had been nearly three years since I visited my neighbor's miniature donkeys (you can see the former posts here), so I paid him another visit. He welcomed me back and opened the gate for me to follow:

He told me that he only had two donkeys now but had added a Swedish goose. She was friendly and plump, mostly ignoring us as we walked past her:

When we got out to the field, I discovered that he'd added two pet goats to his two miniature donkeys. They all looked at me at nervously and from a distance at first:

But within moments they were trotting right toward me:

The donkeys were so friendly that they were pressing right up against me and I couldn't get a picture of them. So I quickly snapped a picture of the two goats before they also got too close for photos:

There was a male and a female goat, a wether (neutered male) and a doe (female), both them quite sociable:

The owner, a retired dairyman, generally brings them carrots when he walks out and they were disappointed that he had no treats this time. I decided to start buying carrots to feed to my cattle:

I used the opportunity to get some photos while they clustered around him:

But I was a novelty, a new person who, while he had no carrots, did lots of petting - and they were back to me in short order, once again cuddling in so close that it was nearly impossible to get photos. I kept backing away, but they could move faster than I could:

It was a beautiful day and a pleasure to be out in the sun, surrounded by friendly critters:

 Miniature donkeys are indeed tiny, shorter in stature than the goats. They are intelligent, affectionate animals:

But this was just a quick visit and we soon left the animals in their field. I passed the Swedish goose on my way out, taking one last photo: