Back in 1972, i traded a pregnant Saanen doe to Les Hook on Chelsea’s west hill, for a jackass that he had that was tearing down fences and roaming the neighborhood. Hurrite, (Les called him Abner), as we came to call him, had very overgrown feet, which resembled curled Dutch wooden shoes. I was impressed when i watched him running down West Hill road, (a common sight at that time), at how well he managed to run in spite of the condition of his feet. I went to work and convinced Hurrite to let me saw, carve, nip, and otherwise bring his feet into the range of normal looking.  Hurrite proved to be a pretty good worker, (only if he couldn’t avoid it); we paired him up with a little mule supposed to be from South Carolina cotton farms whom we called Cotton. (photos: Hurrite and me c.1982, Hurrite, Cotton, me, cultivating broccoli, Vershire, c.1984).

In 1980, we acquired a feral jennet captured by the Federal Government in Arizona and she gave us jennet foals in 1981, 2, and 4. I still have these three sisters, (and the bones of their mother), here on the farm in Montpelier.