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Our home on Blue Agave Ranch is in Benson, southeastern Arizona in Cochise County. Tucson is the nearest large city and is about 35 to 40 miles west of us. We are also very near the historic towns of Tombstone and Bisbee, Arizona and in the path of the Butterfield Stage Line. In this area, the famous Apache Chief Cochise and his warriors held out against the tide of Europeans at the end of the 1800s. The altitude is just over 3500 feet so that it is slightly cooler than Tucson (2200 feet elevation) and much cooler than Phoenix (1100 feet elevation).

Our family has lived in several parts of Arizona, most recently in Phoenix. We relocated here a couple of years ago and were able to buy a few acres near the San Pedro River. A few months later a neighbor informed us that our property was a fire hazard due to all the uneaten grass and mesquite trees we have. Now I think he just said this because he wanted to do us a favor and graze some cows on our property. Nonetheless, he did have a point, and I began researching what kind of animals I wanted to keep the grass short.

Here I am (on the left) with Harley.

Our entry in a parade in Benson Arizona

I imagined us getting a few baby beef calves that we would grow attached to and then not have the heart to have them slaughtered when they were 'ready for market'. They would live here until they were 20 years old! So cows were out. Goats are agile and hard to fence in; horses, although fun to ride and we have a couple now, can have major vet bills if they are around barbed wire due to their strong 'fight or flight' instinct. Also, they can colic or founder if you don't keep a close eye on them. We wanted a type of animal that my kids and I could handle and that were easy to take care of and weren't prone to illness or disease. Many domestic animals have seemed to 'lost their brains' when being bred strictly for another purpose, such as milk, wool, or meat production (pigs excepted - reason unknown!).

I began reading more about mules and donkeys. I knew that mules 'got their brains' from donkeys. When I learned that donkeys REALLY LIKE people, rather than just thinking of people as a nuisance or something to fear or a meal ticket, I got interested. Then I read that donkeys will try to stomp on any predators,such as coyotes, that come onto the property, and I started envisioning a ring around our house where our Phoenix-trapped wild kittens and our small Papillon dogs could continue to go outside near the house without being snapped up by coyotes or bobcats. We keep a BIG DOG with them to keep the birds of prey away. Then I began reading website after website and book after book about how sweet and smart and friendly donkeys are, (excepting breeding jacks, who should be watched) and decided that these were the animals for us. After another year of planning and searching for the best conformed animals with gentle temperaments from reputable breeders we settled on some miniature animals from MINIPICKENS in Oregon and mammoth jennies from Missouri and New Mexico. The miniature donkeys are fairly rare, while the Mammoth donkeys are rare. Both types are more like dogs than equines in personality and we are VERY happy with them!

Email for any questions or comments or just to visit!

I somehow collect stray cats, dogs, mules, etc., and the teenage boys have figured it out, too. They can spot a pushover, I took them to Mexico in November and we all had a safe and nice vacation.