The Stone Blind Donkey - Thu Oct 07, 2004 1:12 pm

True to his word, the guy who lives near me who used to own the petting zoo got rid of all of his animals. He sent them all to auction. He sold the goats to my crazy neighbour Miss Knowlton, and they are still on my property because she rents from me now. Of course, my Mum from Freeport helps milk the goats, and has become Miss Knowlton's best friend and vice versa.

When I say that he sold all the animals, that's not entirely true. He has a female miniature donkey with a fuzzy little baby. No one wanted to buy the donkey because it is pathetic looking and blind. Of course the baby is cute as a button. As far as donkeys go, the baby is most unafraid of humans because it didn't learn from its mother to run away. The mother doesn't run away because it can't see.

Well, yesterday the petting zoo guy asked if he could keep the blind donkey and her baby with Miss Knowlton's goats for a week or so. Miss Knowlton said yes. As he was leading the donkey with a halter, he stopped to open the gate. The donkey didn't stop, and boinked its head on the fence. It was a little pathetic and a little funny at the same time.

Mum and Miss Knowlton were watching the scene. Mum turns to Miss Knowlton and asks her if they could attempt to do something to help the donkey. After all, as Mum explains it, the donkey has a special place on earth, because Jesus entered Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. Miss Knowlton agreed. The petting zoo guy sees that Miss Knowlton and Mum are tending to the donkey, so he goes and fetches his wife. His wife is a witchy woman in her 50's. When this woman talks, she has a cackly voice. She has no finger nail on her thumb from an injury. She had dyed her hair red, an almost orange, but it has grown out, and she has 4 inch gray roots. She really does look like a witch, and apparently is an herbalist of note. I walk over to the group of woman looking at the donkey. One eye is totally screwed. It is opaque, clouded over and atrophied. The donkey will never again see out of that eye. The other eye is all weepy and pussy and infected. Miss Knowlton and the women figure that they can save this eye. The woman is a herbalist, Miss Knowlton is a naturopathic vet and Mum fancies herself as a bit of an authority on bush medicine. I figured that that was enough to stink up my kitchen with medicine making and I was right. They all gathered their supplies and made a herbal concoction. They made a paste for the eyes, medicine to be taken internally, and a poultice. Actually the kitchen didn't smell too bad -- a cross between boiling bones, frying up onions and corned beef, and a pine tree marinating in vinegar. The poor donkey was apathetic and listless, and let the women do their thing. After they applied the poultice, they wrapped the eyes with a cut up and boiled bedsheet, and the donkey looked like an Egyptian mummy escapee from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Then the women went and cleaned up my kitchen, made tea and had tea and biscuits. I was working away at the computer, and the goat herding dog Toby begins to bark. The blind donkey starts braying. I take a look out. The blind donkey has gone crazy. It trots a bit, stops, spins around, wobbles and brays. The fuzzy baby donkey is puzzled as is Toby the herding dog. He tries to round up the blind donkey, but it pays no never mind to him. Then the donkey goes traipsing off and bashes into the fence. It falls over, struggles to its feet, and start hee-hawing fit to beat the devil. I yell for the women folk and they come rushing out. They just look at one another in a conspiratorial fashion, and go over and try to subdue the donkey. I look at Mum and ask her why the donkey was acting that way. The witchy woman says that it is her 'special' ingredient. I ask her what that special ingredient might be. It turns out that it is British Columbia Hydroponic, some of the most potent marijuana on this planet. Now the donkey starts thinking that it's Bob Marley or the Wailers. It won't shut up. I don't know if you have ever been up close to a braying donkey, but it aint pleasant. We lock the donkey in the chicken coop with it baby so it won't hurt itself. We got some bales of hay from the petting zoo guy and lined the walls of the chicken coop. I put out a plastic pail full of water and we locked them in for the night.

The donkey wore itself out braying by about 10:00 PM. During the night, the donkey got the munchies, and the lil thing nearly ate a whole bale of hay by itself. That's a lot, considering that it is a miniature, and a bale of hay comes up to its belly.

Mum and Miss Knowlton open the door, and try to put a rope around the neck of the donkey to lead her to the pasture. The donkey flinches and backs away. Mum and Miss Knowlton look at each other. The fact that the donkey flinches at the rope, means that it can see a little bit. They start into their "Praise Be Jesus" and "Hallelujah, its a miracle".

So, I have a bunch of the medicine left over. I figure that it will go for a thousand bucks on the street, or conversely, I'm going to donate it to a pharmaceutical company and get the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Or I could apply a poultice to myself and ponder the wonders of the universe. I dipped my finger in the salve and already I' m feeling funny. I'm thinking weird thoughts, like if I ever open a pub, I'm gonna call it the Stoned Blind Donkey. But then again, it's just me being an ass.

Comments

Add New

Search

Only registered users can write comments!