We've been living at our current house for around a year and while we have plenty of our own animals our landlord also has a bunch of animals that live in the paddocks and fields surrounding us.
My favourite, and the friendliest of these is Merna the donkey!
Merna is around 10 years old and lives in a paddock with 5-6 goats, a sheep and 3 alpaccas including a baby. The alpaccas are all wary of people, the goats are fairly friendly though and will let you feed and pet them, but Merna is just a big sweety. When we first moved in we would take her carrots and fruit but she would get a little mean with the goats and chase them away. We stopped bringing food to her in the hopes she would realise the goats weren't getting fed without her and it seemed to work, though every so often she still needs to show her dominance.
Still whenever she sees us walking down the driveway she comes running from wherever in the field she is for some nice pats and scratches. She loves a scratch under the chin and behind the ears. Everytime you pat her you leave with very dirty hands as she seems to enjoy rolling around in the dusty patches. Both her and the older alpacca have cleared a small circle of grass and left just dirt and they can both be found sitting there in the sun most mornings.
Merna belongs to our landlord and when speaking to her the other day she said she hopes to get a little cart that she can sit in and Merna can pull her into town which I think is amusing. She is supposedly broken in for riding but I haven't personally tried to ride her. I know donkeys are very strong pack animals but I would feel bad sitting my 110kg on her.
She is very aware of feeding times and does not take kindly when daylight savings begins and ends. You will often hear her baying at dinner time if her mum is running late with food, a constant reminder not to forget. I actually don't mind the sound and think its quite cute. She only does it a couple of times so its not a constant incessant noise.
I will miss Merna when we leave for our roadtrip as it always nice to give her some pats on the way past walking the dog or taking up the bins. She seems pretty happy where she is though, bossing around a pack of goats and grazing to her hearts content.