The to-do list for the morning hours that I made on my phone at 5:30 am included 1) clean the kitchen, 2) start the laundry, 3) get the duck out of the freezer to thaw, 4) do morning chores, 5) cut a cedar to use for the Christmas tree (while still in coveralls), 6) decorate the tree, 7) wrap presents, and 8) row 14,000m to finish the holiday rowing challenge. What happened was: the first three went off without a hitch, and then things took a definite detour during #4. I was surprised to hear the calf making noise so early in the morning as I was letting the chickens out of their coops, and doubly surprised when I glanced towards the corral to see sheep standing on the compost mound. Everyone is usually still bedded down and pretty quiet when I start the morning chores. I quickly discovered the reason for the departure from the norm - the oldest male donkey had worked his way into the corral where the next-oldest donkey has been living for about 4 months after we separated them because they were duking it out for dominance in a pretty serious way. He'd shimmied in through a tiny opening in a gate that has a broken latch that I've been meaning to bungee for about a week. (Lesson learned.) They were back at duking-it-out, the older donkey chasing the younger one around and around the corral and adjoining pastures, ripping through trees and over rocks and completely freaking out the sheep, the calf and the mule. It was kind of complicated and pretty stressful to get the donkeys separated and the big donk back where he belongs while they were tearing around trying to rip each other apart and with the other animals in the mix. I got it done, eventually, and then put out hay for the sheep and was filling everyone's water. As I pulled the hose over to the calf's water tank, I tripped on a loop of partially-buried baling twine, and fell - literally - flat on my face. My chin and nose hit first and I got a nice mouthful of corral. My glasses went flying but, luckily, stayed in one piece. My nose hurts, one of my front teeth hurts and I have a pretty decent headache from the rattling. It's 10 am and I'm way behind on the to-do list, but things will sort. It's not all easy, and it's not always fun, but I wouldn't trade any part of my life for anything.