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Ideas come and ideas go... and being wide awake at 2:00 am. in the morning and having nothing else to do but think strange things I get strange ideas so last night my whole attention was given to how and from whence cometh The donkey’s --- poo.. it really would be very nice to be able to take some donkeys into these places ----they would be a huge hit they'd be wonderful with the temperament quiet and things -----the one downfall would be should they decide to move their bowels ------so if I could manage to catch that we would have a whole new operation going... now I know about the carriage horses in New York carrying the poop bags behind them and I had some made for my hitch of eight donkeys but they're so obvious they're not particularly gracious living so I've been trying to figure out how to disguise the whole thing and yet be able to take the donkey into these places and I think the answer may be to rig the donkey up with a pack saddle that's that wooden X on top of a donkey or horse to which you tie things like camping gear etcetera... in my case we probably would hang tote bags with our luncheon or something ....now for this to be. and effective poo catcher the harness would have to be equipped with what's known as a crouper which is a leather circle sort of thing which the tail goes through.. That would make the crupper the top of the manure producing hole... now to keep the bottom part of the catching device tight against the donkeys rear end is the challenge facing me at 2:30 AM... the pack saddle would be historically correct and interesting and although I do like brown leather it is tough to take care of and they do have a substitute now basically of plastic which is black and you could literally just dunk it in Murphy's oil solution to clean it.. this is a good thing because cleaning a full size harness with the brass and all is many hours----- my hitch for 8 literally was a full day and sometimes more than that ----but it was beautiful..
The hitch for the 8 donkeys was made by Sam Friedman of Toronto who was a world renowned harness maker and that harness was equally as fine as any coach leather pocketbook I ever saw---- however---when I was just learning to drive two and then four I had a harness made by smuckers harness maker from Pennsylvania... the old Amish harness maker.. the problem was the leather was so strong I could have towed a small train with it except I can hardly force the leather through the buckles.... so graduating from Amish to Sam Friedman there was a large culture shock there.. there's no way I want to spend the Sam Friedman type money and putting together donkey pack saddle but maybe the Amish people can help I think the guy's name was Dan and I have spoken to him through the years as I buy all my brass rings through him...
Now for the way out concept which probably Janine and almost everyone else we'll have a knee jerk reaction to.... is that it would be possible to bring a mini donkey up onto the deck of the cabin. for me to work with there's no way I can get all the way down to the barn not only is it a long way but it's what you have to go through to get there. but I could work off the deck of the of the cabin then I could get some serious time put in to the donkey and maybe even the mini pony and get them prepared to enter the ranks of entertaining animals by the ides of March..
it's wonderful to get strange ideas that are so popular and we'd love to do them ... but our ideas are beginning to back up behind us and I want to get my homework done ahead of time... you give me a couple weeks with a donkey and we can do stairs and hop in and out of the trailer and things like that but there's an awful lot of grooming and food handling and treat giving to go through to get to that point... and if the donkey is not relaxed and looking for cookies and jumping in and out of the trailer and things like that it would be more like work than fun.. seeing as I don't have anything else to do at the moment I could play with a donkey.. heck they won't let me play it's within with anything else... hint. Hint. Hint
so I started looking online for many donkey pack saddles... I know I had a perfect pack saddle for Mary who was a mammoth donkey and I hope it's over at Meredith because I bought that in Billings Mt for about $550... and it is saddle leather... so of all things ----it smells good !-------I like the smell of leather even if I do have to clean it... so although this is an idiot project. I fully intend to spend my own money on it... so that I will be lacking the supervision of the younger generation..
I have also decided that I may not order any harness until I get that chicken. on that chicken carrying device...... that project is held up because no one has found the pig stuff that sticks to the floor... which we had when we had elderly dogs we need to put that on the shelf for the chicken so she doesn't slide around.... and I need to get that done before I start the harness project. Sticky shelf covering might have to be substituted...... but that pig “roll” is. Around somewhere......
so there!
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