Thursday, December 30, 2010

A New Addition

As you may know, the Mrs and I have been expecting... to adopt a mini donkey at some point.  We finally got the opportunity to adopt a MDINA (a "mini donkey in need of assistance") just after Christmas, and we jumped at the chance.  We have named him Gino Bartali il Ciucciarelli (Gino Bartali the little donkey).


Mini donkeys are not bred down in size.  They are Sicilian so they just happen to be short and rather hairy.  Little Gino is white and gray with a sorrel (reddish brown) cross on his back.  He stands about 36" tall.

Since he is from southern Italian and seems to be religious, we named him after Gino Bartali, the great Italian cyclist who raced just prior to and just after WWII.  Gino Bartali, known as "il Pious," was a beautiful champion and even helped the Italian resistance during WWII.  Hopefully little Gino will live up to the name.



We were initially a bit concerned that little Gino would get bullied by Snow and the Bumpas hounds, but those concerns were quickly laid to rest.  Snow is completely smitten with, as the Mrs. calls him, "little donkey man."  We have not really let them interact because Gino was just vaccinated today.  He will be on quarantine for about 2 weeks, but it appears that Snow will stand outside his stall and watch him until we let him out.


He has also proven that he can hold his own with the Bumpases.  Thus, he should be a fine addition to our farm.

4 comments:

Vegan Burnout said...

Okay, now I want donkey cuddles. Gino is quite the dapper gent; plus, I'm sure he'll hold his own well, being Sicilian and all. Congrats on your new addition!

Anonymous said...

Welcome to the burrito! He's real cute little guy! He and Snow will be quite a pair.
the O's

BFP said...

This is terrible, it seems that we had an anonymous commenter who might have died mid-comment. Now we will never know what he or she was going to say about the Orioles.

BFP said...

Ahhh, a message confirms that the anonymous commenters are OK and living a good and fruitful life. What I believed to be a sentence fragment was actually a signature line.