The Christmas Donkey

We have 3 stalls in the barn... but we had only 2 horses. That is a problem isn't it? So I had been half-heartedly browsing Craigslist for weeks for a pony or donkey to occupy the 3rd stall. My justification with this was that the donkey/pony could be good company for our mare Tessa, who is due to foal in the spring and we will be separating her from her pasturemate Big Red in a few months.. so voila, she'd have a little buddy. Also, the donkey/pony would be great company for Tessa's colt next year, or whenever the little guy must be separated from momma for weaning. Also...... well.... I always wanted a donkey.

I have found several ponies of course with everyone wanting to exploit the Christmas season to sell their ponies at premium prices to clueless children. I also have found several donkeys. But none were the right price, the right color, the right age, the right gender, or whatever. They just didn't FEEL right.

Until I saw this one. She was young. She was good natured. She was cheap. She was gray. She was a she. Perfect. I emailed. She was still available. The only problem was that she was about 120 miles away.

Not a problem. I scurried off to the local Co-op to rent a horse trailer, picked up Trish, a good friend and headed off to get my donkey. However, at the Co-op, my plug for trailer lights on my truck did not seem to match up to the trailer's plug for lights so the little guy at the Co-op put an adapter on there... a rather large, heavy, dangly contraption that didn't look like it would stay plugged in and attached but he seemed confident. Off we went.

I might note that it was Christmas Eve. (but isn't that PERFECT? I mean... get it??? Christmas... donkey?????) Anyway, I might also note that it was late afternoon and a horrible thunderstorm was approaching from the direction we were heading.

When we got about halfway there... the man with the donkey called and told us perhaps we shouldn't come because it was raining there so hard you could not see your hand in front of your face. Walls of rain.. unbelievable. However I was on a quest to get my donkey and was NOT to be deterred. I told him I was already halfway there and had rented a horse trailer and everything.. I HAD to come! Besides.. what's a little rain.. I mean, criminy. My trusty cohort Trish commented that I should have advised him he was wasting his cell phone minutes trying to tell me not to come!

About 10 minutes later, it hit. The rain, that is. Unbelievable. Everyone was pulling off the interstate to the shoulder. You honestly could see NOTHING. After a few moments though it lightened up to where people could grope their way very slowly along and gradually it cleared enough to get a reasonable speed up and continue cautiously on our way.

By the time we arrived there.. the rain had stopped. See? no problem! But the man, although friendly and kind, didn't seem to think it was going to exactly be a "piece of cake". It seems his pasture was about 1 foot deep in mud, the donkey had never had a halter on before, let alone taught to lead, so getting the donkey from the muddy pasture to the horse trailer several hundred feed away was NOT going to be easy.

After much coaxing and bribing, he managed to coerce the donkey and her mother into a small square pen in the corner of his muddy pasture. There, he wrestled a halter onto her. She was shy and not happy about that idea. Trish and I waited while he opened the little pen and tried to nudge her in the direction of the gate and the truck beyond.

That's when the fun began. The donkey took off out of the pen through the mud across the field dragging the man hanging VERY stubbornly onto the end of the rope, bent forward with his feet out in front of him like he was waterskiing through the deep mud which was flying everywhere. We were all trying not to laugh, knowing that at any second, he would either land face flat in the mud or let the donkey go. But amazingly, the donkey stopped.. and the man recomposed himself while we all exploded in laughter. Honestly, that was the funniest sight I have seen in a VERY long time and was, in itself, worth the trip down there!

We all pitched in and wrestled the now-much-more-resigned-but-still-quite-stubborn donkey out through the gate, over to the trailer and up into it. (thank heavens she was a LITTLE donkey) He gave us a rooster also.. a white one. We named the chicken "George".

As we were about to leave, the man pointed out that we had no lights working on the trailer. He pointed to the connection where there was SUPPOSED to be the plug adapter at the trailer hitch. It was gone. The wires had dragged along the pavement for many miles and disintegrated. We had no trailer lights. Not good. It was now almost dark. It was foggy. We had 1½ hours of interstate travel between us and home and we were heading back into the rainstorm.... with no trailer lights. AND it was Christmas eve... no store open to get replacement wiring or plug adapter. It was also a wonderful thought knowing we had come down through the thunderstorm also without lights and didn't know it.

hmm. Well what are ya gonna do? The donkey man assured us our truck lights could be seen around the trailer and advised us to use our emergency flashers if weather and visibility turned really nasty. So with no other options, off we went, donkey, chicken and all.

We only got pulled over once, and once we told our story to the nice policeman, he let us go. The rest of the trip home was uneventful.

We released chicken George and unloaded the donkey into her new stall freshly bedded with deep clean soft straw. She was scared and shy but seemed very gentle and sweet. George disappeared to explore the great outdoors. I figured he wouldn't last long but since we had no chicken coop (yet), he was on his own.

Over the next few days in the barn, we bonded with the little donkey and she with us. We introduced her to a halter (we bought her a tiny bright red one when we returned the trailer!) and taught her to lead. Donkeys sure can be stubborn. We gave her all her vaccinations and wormed her and fed her twice a day like the "big horses". She seems happy.

Now she is working on worming her way into the "herd" of other 2 horses in the pasture who have shunned her. Horses are often much like cats... they can act like they hate each other for about the first week or so of introduction and then all of a sudden they are best buddies. Every day, the little donkey is munching closer and closer to the others in the field.

What a perfect Christmas gift to ourselves. A donkey. Was a very cozy, magical atmosphere in the barn with all the horses in their stalls bedded in deep straw, the donkey, the chicken (who returned from the great outdoors to hop up high on the rafters and settle down to snooze), kittens exloring and a few dogs. Very cozy. Life is good.