{"id":521,"date":"2017-04-19T23:58:40","date_gmt":"2017-04-20T03:58:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/?p=521"},"modified":"2017-04-19T23:58:40","modified_gmt":"2017-04-20T03:58:40","slug":"donkey-see-donkey-doo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/?p=521","title":{"rendered":"DONKEY SEE, DONKEY DOO"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_0832\"<\/a><\/h3>\n

\u00a0Faye reading “DONKEYS” to Beck who seems to be enjoying the story while Rosie doesn’t seem to care.<\/h2>\n

<\/h3>\n

My latest book, HALLEY, awarded 2015 Jefferson Cup Honor for Historical Fiction, awarded the Moonbeam Silver Medal for Young Adult Fiction,\u00a0 and awarded the 2016 Frank Yerby Award for Fiction.\u00a0 Available at: NewSouth Books:\u00a0www.newsouthbooks.com\/halley and Amazon<\/strong>.<\/h2>\n




I love donkeys. Always have. I started wanting one of my very own\u00a0 when I discovered BRIGHTY OF THE GRAND CANYON. That little burro was so independent, so loyal to his friends, so resourceful when difficulties arose, that I could not help loving him.\u00a0 He knew how to fight off coyotes, mountain lions, wolves, and even a few bad humans who wanted to mistreat him.\u00a0 Oh, I knew owning a donkey was a hopeless wish\u2014Brighty had lived\u00a0 way out West, and, as far as I knew, so did all the other donkeys.\u00a0 They needed more space than a city yard afforded.<\/strong>

Time passed, and my husband and I moved to a rural area.\u00a0\u00a0 Meanwhile, coyotes began expanding their habitat, sometimes even taking to urban areas.\u00a0 In our part of the country, we started hearing rumors of coyotes killing cattle.\u00a0 We began to hear their howling at night.\u00a0 Then about twenty years ago coyotes nearly killed our two dogs.\u00a0 Jack, the older one, was so slashed across his underbelly that the vet did not think he would survive.\u00a0 After that incident our dogs were fenced at night and when we were away from home.\u00a0 <\/strong>

Farmers take coyotes seriously.\u00a0 Losing cattle can put a farmer out of business pretty fast.\u00a0 Cattle farmers are more than willing to shoot predators, but coyotes are not easy targets.\u00a0 Poisoned bait would not only endanger other animals, such as cats and dogs, but more often than not, wouldn\u2019t work, because coyotes are suspicious of meat with any smell of humans on or around it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>

Ta-dah!\u00a0 Enter the Donkey!\u00a0 Donkeys are smarter than cows, and they can kick the daylights out of anything looking or smelling like a predator.\u00a0 I began seeing donkeys in among herds of cattle in our part of Alabama.\u00a0 Sometimes I HEARD them, too, with their distinctive \u201cHee-haw, hee-haw, heehaw!\u201d<\/strong>

Then last year I got my own donkey\u2014sort of.\u00a0 My husband and I rented a cabin for the week in Brasstown, North Carolina.\u00a0 The owner of the cabin had a huge pasture behind the cabin, and in that pasture was a donkey.\u00a0 The very first day I went out to lure him close enough to pet.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t buying.\u00a0 Undoubtedly, he had met a few humans who needed a good swift kick.\u00a0 The next day after I finished my class at the nearby Folk School, I went out to the pasture with an apple in hand.\u00a0 This day, Buck, as I had named him,\u00a0 ambled closer, but not close enough to touch.\u00a0 I waved the apple, sliced off a wedge, and tossed it in his direction.\u00a0 He ate it and moved a step or two closer to the fence with each slice until the apple was gone.<\/strong>

The next day when I appeared at the fence with an apple, Buck ambled over close enough to take the apple from my fingers.\u00a0 I managed to rub his muzzle before he retreated.\u00a0 By the fourth day, he came to the fence as soon as I appeared, and on the last day, he came running as soon as he heard our car drive up, bellowing, \u201cHee-haw, hee-haw, hee-haw!\u201d<\/strong>

\u201cAnd you want to listen to that every day at home?\u201d My husband asked.<\/strong>

He had a point, but I wasn\u2019t going to tell him so.<\/strong>
So now we\u2019ve worked it out.\u00a0 I have my donkey, and once or twice a year I go to North Carolina to visit him!\u00a0 Last week when we were there Buck had two new friends\u2014a shetland pony and a llama.\u00a0 Now I need to take three apples when I go visiting,<\/strong>

As Buck Owens used to say, \u201cHee-haw!\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Faye reading “DONKEYS” to Beck who seems to be enjoying the story while Rosie doesn’t seem to care. My latest book, HALLEY, awarded 2015 Jefferson Cup Honor for Historical Fiction, awarded the Moonbeam Silver Medal for Young Adult Fiction,\u00a0 and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=521"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":525,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521\/revisions\/525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}