Guest column
By Pam Wormington
Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places
T
he old-timers used to say that the beauty shop was the place to get in on the latest gossip. This farm wife says it’s the best place to find a donkey, a dinky donkey. My hairdresser, friend, and miracle worker, Jennifer, and I visited at the Back Porch
Sparky
for years, and we talked about everything under the sun from kids, camping, life chaos and occasionally crazy farm life. One day I was telling her about my sweet Cupid, a miniature mule, and how she was nearing the age of greener pastures and that I’d like to bring along another protector of our baby calves and livestock. It was then that she mentioned a sassy girl, Stormy. Stormy is a miniature Jerusalem donkey, and she and her main man, Jack, needed to find a new farm. The price was right, and we were excited to bring the duo home and introduce them to our herd of cattle.
It turns out we got 2 ½ donkeys! Hee Haw! July 3 of that year, we ‘ooooed and awed’ over a little girl and named her Poppy. She was a showstopper. Actually, it was the traffic on our farm road that stopped to watch her as she stayed near her momma under the shade tree next to our house. The next year on July 4, little ‘Sparky’ was born, another dinky donkey. At this point we were really getting a big bang for our buck. Did I mention the two donkeys were free? Hee Haw! Due to the ‘situationship’ or as a biologist would call it ‘inbreeding’, Jack and Sparky found new farms and families. Stormy and her daughter, Poppy, remain here on the farm. They love treats, our grandsons, and
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