Donkey Pals

http://americangoldcup.net/

The DonkeyPals of NEOhio will travel to Moreland Hills, Ohio on September 22-23 where their display tent will be featured at the Wachovia Securities American Gold Cup Jumper Classic horse event! Thanks to an invitation from Betty Weibel the DonkeyPals will be taking between 8-10 donkeys to this event along with their breed and care educational displays. We will have our own tent and display area!

This is a big event for us and we thank Betty and the Gold Cup for this exciting opportunity to help give many new people the chance to meet a donkey up close and personal and learn more about them. Come to The Clevelnad Metroparks Polo Field next Saturday and Sunday, pet a donkey and say HELLO!

Fri Sep 14, 9:36 PM ET

A donkey is happily eating grass again after falling down a dry, abandoned well and being freed in an intensive rescue effort. It appeared that the animal wandered away from its farm and onto some boards covering the well, which broke, said Bruce Huseth, fire chief in this western Minnesota town.

Firefighters quickly realized that the animal, which belongs to farmer Warren Gundberg, couldn’t just be pulled from the abandoned well on Bryan Nelson’s land.

So they started pulling away earth with a tractor and dismantling the well block by block Thursday. Once one wall had been taken apart, firefighters put a harness around the donkey and guided it out with a rope.

“Whatever it takes,” Nelson said as he watched his well come down. “I love animals, and I’m just glad it’s OK.”

Gundberg admonished the animal after the rescue: “I bet you’ll think twice about doing that again. If you would have stayed home you wouldn’t be in this trouble.”

Huseth said that he has rescued cows that have fallen through ice, but that the donkey was a first.

 CONGRATULATIONS to Becky Graham of Garrettsville and Carol Rhodes of Windsor! They were our lucky winners of the DonkeyPals T-shirt raffle drawing! They will receive their shirts in the mail very soon!

Thanks to all who participated!

DonkeyPal T-shirtOriginally uploaded by cabinwoodfarm

Donkeypals at the Geauga fair 2007Originally uploaded by cabinwoodfarm

DonkeyPals of NEOhio was proud to participate in the record crowds and good weather at the Great Geauga County Fair of 2007!

We had a GREAT experience at our very first County Fair! Thanks go out to everyone who helped get this idea off the ground, helped to pull it all together, and helped to make our first event of this size a huge success!

We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect event. The weather was spectacular! Carol Cooper of Windview Farm sent Mona Lisa her NLP black mature jennet along with Autum her yearling spotted jenny. Cabinwood Farm entertained the crowd with the beautiful weanling Bette Pauline and the comedy weanling team of JW the Duke and the infamous and adored Rooster C. What a crowd these donkeys drew into our tent!

We had questions galore from “What are those things, goats?” to many other very specific questions about feeding, breeding and all around donkey care. Many folks may have been seeing their first donkey but many others told us wonderful stories about donkeys from their childhood or great tales of the trials and tribulations (and affections) of being past donkey owners. We met many wonderful people and I talked so much for 5 days that I came home hoarse and can barely squeak out my words!

Sleeping in the tent for 5 nights was a real experience for me! The first night was SO SO HOT but then holding true to it’s reputation, Geauga County weather took a turn for the cooler and the nights got more than a little nippy! Thanks to my son Jason who brought me up an electric blanket and to the fair board who makes sure there is electricity in every tent! I stayed warm every night. I had company one night as Wendy Nye made the big sacrifice and stayed with me only to be kept awake all night by the drag racing of garbage trucks cleaning up after the fair closed and the neighboring tent’s standard donkey jack who spent a lot of time heehawing at the sweet lovelies over in our tent! I was also awakened every morning my the Lake Farm park’s resident Rooster who crowed out of their petting zoo tent next door!

The best part of the whole fair was the DonkeyPals themselves pitching in and helping out to make the event as successful as it was! Thanks to my husband Mr. Al who toiled at home keeping the dogs and donkeys at Cabinwood Farm fed and cared for on top of his own job so I could spend almost 24/7 at the fairgrounds. Also thanks to my son Jason who made the donkey picture video, helped with design and printing of information we handed out and for all his help manning the tent and talking to folks. Carol Cooper and her husband John hauled the donks to and from and then manned the tent like troopers almost every day. Cindy Wolf did a fantastic job not only manning the tent but she brought us all cookies and food and coffee and did more than her share of shoveling and hauling to keep the donks well cared for! Wendy donated her picket pen that worked great for holding the donks and she worked the tent along with other DonkeyPals Missy and Marie and Bev and Janice. Even Bob stopped in for moral support a few days and we had several other members stop by the tent to say hello!

I could go on and on but there is only so much time and space! Thanks to all who worked, came to the fair, learned about donkeys, signed up to become new members and then to Randy Bennett our Fair Director who gave us our tent space and allowed us the opportunity to “talk donkey” to the record crowds of people at the 2007 Great Geauga County Fair! (PS Randy…next year we want a bigger tent!!)

Donkeypals at the Geauga fair 2007

Originally uploaded by cabinwoodfarm

A GREAT TIME was had by all at the Geauga County Fair last week and weekend!

Pictured here is donkey Autumn from Carol Cooper’s Windview Farm entertaining all the kids who came into the tent for a “donkey fix!”

Annabel the honorary DonkeyPal

Originally uploaded by cabinwoodfarm

The DonkeyPal crew got the rest of the tent set up this afternoon and we are ready to go to the fair!! Annabel was there today to test out the donkey pen and it worked just fine!!

Carol Cooper and her husband John will be loading their 2 donkeys on Wednesday and then heading over to Lori’s at Cabinwood Farm to pick up Cabinwood’s 2 or 3 weanies then it’s off to the fair and Thursday morning we’ll be opening!

Hope you all can come and visit our tent! Stop and say hello!
See you at the Fair!

Donkey Pals of NEOHIO go to the Fair!

Originally uploaded by cabinwoodfarm

Tonight was our regular meeting of DonkeyPals but this was no regular get-to-gether! We all met at the fairgrounds and started getting our tent ready for the Great Geauga County Fair that will begin August 30 and run through Labor Day!

We put the donkey pen up tonight and made plans to return for the final setup this Sunday at 1pm!

DonkeyPals wants to thank Fulton Sign of Mentor, OH for making our great new club banner for our tent display!

Thanks to all those pictured….(left to right) Bob, Bev, Cindy, Missy, Marie, Wendy, Carol, Lori, Janice, and also Jason who took the picture for making this DonkeyPals club a great success so far!!

Hello DonkeyPals!

I spoke with Randy Bennett this morning about our plans to hold our meeting this coming Wednesday at the fairgrounds. He said that would be fine, the tent should be up by then and if he can, he will try and stop by the area during our meeting and answer any questions we might still have!

SO…Wednesday, August 22 at 6:30pm please be in Burton at the Geauga County Fairgrounds for our regular monthly meeting instead of Cogans restaurant. We will meet behind the small grandstand which is where our tent will be located! There will be no food available so either eat before you come or fast until we get done and just eat later! We will be signing up for volunteer work hours at this meeting so come with your schedules in hand. We’d like to have folks work at least 4 hr shifts and we want to always have at least 2 volunteers in the tent all the time in case one should have to leave for an emergency potty or sausage sandwich or french fries run! Randy will try and get us as many exhibitor passes as he can and then we will have to work it out amongst us as to how we get them to all the volunteers. Randy said anyone who arrives before 8am to man the tent won’t need a pass.

We will be exhibiting 4 miniature donkeys..2 weanling jacks, a yearling jennet and an adult jennet. All of you need to bring pictures of your donkeys…as many as you have that I can scan or on a disc already if you have them so my son can put together a video that we will show on a small TV in the tent during the fair (weather permitting, of course) If you don’t have pictures and you want your donks on the DVD club video then email or phone us up and we can try to get over to your place and take some soon!

If you can’t make the meeting Wednesday but you can volunteer to work anytime between 8am Thursday Aug 30-Monday Sept 3 closing PLEASE contact us so we can plug your time into the schedule!!!

Hope to see you all (or at least a lot of you!) this Wednesday! DonkeyPals is Going To The FAIR!  

An emergency fair planning meeting was held yesterday at Belles Restaurant (Under new Management). Carol Cooper, Lori Wargo, Bev Krueger, Cindy Wolf and Jason Bennett attended.

First order of business was to all agree that we wanted to accept the tent offer to bring DonkeyPals of NEOhio to the fair. WE ACCEPTED the challenge!

Carol Cooper and Lori Wargo have volunteered to bring donkeys for the 5 day display…2 weanlings, one yearling and a mature miniature jennet. Carol Cooper’s husband John will be providing the truck and trailer to transport the donkeys to and from the fair wed the 29th and Mon the 3rd of Sept. It was agreed we were not able to safely bring a larger donkey for display this year. All other donkeys of members will be photographed and their pictures will be on display either in print form or on the video slideshow that Jason Bennett will be making to show on a small television setup inside the tent. Carol has already contacted all the donkey organizations and asked for donations or magazines to display and any other forms of educational material they are willing to send. A 3′ x 6′ DonkeyPal banner is being made by Fulton Sign (Jason’s old college roommate!) for us to hang outside the tent. Wendy Nye has offered her 8′x16′ pickett fence corral for our use in the tent and we will bring that and then divide it for the 4 donks. Several tables have been donated for display area and Bev is donating material to drape the tables. Jason Bennett and Lori Wargo brought T-shirts they made with the DonkeyPals logo on them and will be taking orders from all volunteer members for them at a suggested donation price of $5.00 each to cover the expense of shirt and logo transfer. Anyone NOT volunteering to work in the tent can still order one but the suggested donation price will be $10.

The next DonkeyPals meeting is scheduled for Wed. August 22 at 6:30 pm and we have planned to have it at the tent area of the Geauga County Fair grounds in Burton, behind the small grandstand where our own tent should be set up by then.  Complete setup for the tent is scheduled for the following weekend 24/25/26? on a day we will decide at the meeting on the 22nd. Also at that meeting a chart will be ready for volunteers to signup for their work schedules for all days of the fair…anyone who can not make the regular meeting at the fairgrounds is asked to contact Lori Wargo with the times they will be able to work the tent during the fair.

Any other questions, concerns, complaints or whatevers should be communicated and hopefully can be addressed before the next meeting!

HOORAY! We’re going to the fair!!!! Hope to see y’all there!!

Here are some important questions and answers all donkey folks should know!

1.How to induce labor in a jennet?

            Take a nap.

2. How do you cure equine constipation?

             Load them in a clean trailer.

3. How to get a jennet into heat?

               Take her to a show.

4. How to get your jennet in foal the first covering?

               Let the wrong jack gets out of his pen.

5. How to make sure that your jennet has the perfect size, gender and beautifully colored baby you always wanted?

              Sell her before she foals.

6. How do you induce a cold snap in the weather?

              Clip your donkey.

7. Make it rain?

             Mow a field of hay.

8. How do you make a small fortune in the miniature donkey business?

              Start with a large one.