Believe it or not, but I used to have a donkey when we lived in France and used this house as a week-end getaway. His name was Baltazar. We found him through our butcher. My father asked him if we could find a donkey for us, so the butcher must have used his connections at the slaughterhouse. So you could say that we saved this donkey from certain death.
He was my week-end companion for many years. During the wee,-he stayed with the Desgeorges, the neighboring farmers down the hill. So far and wide, Baltazar was known as "the Desgeorges'
donkey who belongs to the Germans." Baltazar was one of the things I had to leave behind when I moved to America with my family. I was heartbroken. I never saw him again, but my father assured me that he lived out his life on the estate of a friend of his, happily munching on grass until he died.
Back in the early 70's, Baltazar was the only donkey in these parts of France, though they had been an integral part of the landscape long ago. But then cars came along and the donkeys disappeared. Now there is a real revival and you can see them a little everywhere.
So you can imagine how excited I was to go to the Donkey Festival at St. Etienne -sur-Usson this last week-end. It was one of the highlights of this vacation. I fell in love with the little old couple and their tiny donkeys adorned with lace. Priceless.
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