Mud, Manure & Miracles

She's sixty-three. Her hip has opinions. So does the donkey.

Sannie van Rooyen didn't ask for a donkey named Watkins to appoint himself alarm clock, employer-in-chief, and self-declared owner of the kitchen window. She didn't ask for a husband who negotiates mornings in single syllables, a flock of geese with unresolved grievances, or a leguaan with a standing invitation to the water pump. But that's Hartsdeur — the fictional farm, the very real kind of life.

Mud, Manure & Miracles is twenty-four chapters of bushveld mornings, midnight bushpig standoffs, tea with the neighbour who arrives whether or not she's invited, and a marriage held together by thirty-one years of practice and one very patient duvet. It's funny, and then it isn't, and then it is again — because that's what a farm full of rescued animals and stubborn love actually feels like from the inside.

If you've ever chased a goose in your dressing gown, married a man who talks to snakes, or discovered that a donkey can be the most honest relationship in your life — you already know Sannie. Come sit on the stoep.

From the Long Ears & Big Hearts series, Inibos Creations.