Borris the Burro: My Finca BFF

"Can I have your peach?"

Upon arrival at the Finca Los Tres Alcornoques, my favorite animal immediately became the seven year old, fuzzy eared, sweet faced round bellied donkey, Borris.  Even his name!  What a perfect donkey name!  And his signature donkey look with his head down, ears pointing up and eyes gazing at you from under his lashes is enough to make anyone fork over the other half of whatever sweet piece of fruit they are eating!  I adored him so much that I figured he warranted his very own blog post!

"Food? Is that for me? Can I have it anyway?"

 After a few days of working on the finca; however, I quickly noticed that Borris didn’t really have a job or specific purpose on the farm.  This is very unusual in a farming area like San Vicente that typically frowns upon keeping (i.e. continuing to feed and waste resources on) animals that have aged beyond productivity, hence such dishes as coq au vin (old cock) and mutton stew (old sheep).  Why, you ask, does this finca have a donkey whose sole purpose is seemingly to eat everything in sight and get in as much donkey trouble as he can?  Well, I’ll tell you!

Donkey Rides on Brighton Beach, 1976 
(photo courtesy of Yvonne Thompson)

The owner of the finca and our hostess, Brin, is originally from Brighton, U.K. and according to her, it the dream of every British child to own a donkey.  This concept seemed strange as truthfully the thought of owning a donkey had never even occurred to me (until the birth of Shrek and his Donkey, the typical American childhood has been relatively limited in donkey exposure, save Winnie the Poo’s buddy Eeyore).  The thought of owning a donkey may have seemed bizarre because a trip to the beach for most American children means sun, sand, waves and sand toys.  For U.K. children, on the other hand, a trip to the beach meant the traditional seaside donkey ride!  Ok, now I get it!  If that was your childhood beach experience, what child wouldn’t want a pet donkey? 

Side bar:  Throughout the 1970’s the popularity of the U.K.’s beach donkeys increased, as did their societal awareness of protecting animals’ rights.  In 1973, Dr Elisabeth Svendsen founded the Donkey Sanctuary in Devon, which now includes eight farms and houses thousands of rescued donkeys.  My previous statement regarding Borris’ curious nature and aptitude for finding trouble seems to be typical donkey characteristics as confirmed by Claire, one of the grooms on Brookfield Farm: "Joseph has got the biggest personality of all the donkeys here at Brookfield. If there is a yard broom he can steal - he will. If there is a pot of paint he can stick his nose in - he will. If there are builders or workmen here that he can follow around and annoy - he will."  Extremely entertaining!

The Donkey Sanctuary has also helped sanction codes that protect the beach donkeys by prohibiting excessively overweight children from riding them as well as requiring that the donkeys are given at least one hour long break per day.  You can find information on how to foster or adopt a donkey from this fascinating charity at http://www.thedonkeysanctuary.org.uk/ (after browsing this site, I searched HelpX to see whether the sanctuary participated in the farm stay exchange and needed a donkey lover and her husband, but, to no avail).

Anyway, back to my darling Borris.  So, like most British children, Brin had always had the fantastical dream of owning a donkey, but now that she and her husband had sold their house in Brighton and bought a finca in San Vicente de Alcántara, Spain, the childhood wish had the potential for reality.  However, being the practical person that every successful farm owner must be, Brin’s financial priorities were focused strictly on essentials (e.g. how to utilize the four wells and set up a finca-wide water system, etc.).

That was until seven years ago, three years into owning the finca, when Brin was approached by a neighbor who said that he had a friend who had a baby donkey and was she interested in owning a donkey?  Concentrating on whatever frustrating project was currently at hand, she briskly brushed him off, “No, I don’t want a donkey!”  The next day, “Are you sure you don’t want a donkey?  He’s a good donkey!”  The next day, “You’re sure, really?”  “No, I can’t afford a donkey.”  “Just make an offer and I will ask my friend.”  In attempts to put him off for good, Brin devised a genius plan: tell the neighbor that all she could afford to pay was €100 when, as anyone knows, the going rate for a donkey was more like €300.  Quite “fluffed up and proud” of herself, she went inside the house thinking, ha, that’s the end of that!

Much to her surprise, two weeks later, the neighbor came back to tell Brin that his friend had consented and when did she want to pick up her new donkey!  Oops.  Apparently, an unspoken San Vicente pueblo rule is that if you make an offer on something and the offer is accepted, you’ve as good as bought it (i.e. it’s really bad form to change your mind).  Not wanting to create a rift between herself, a foreigner, and her neighbor, a long time Extremaduran finca owner, she resigned herself to the three foot high, three month old baby donkey.  Done and done.

I tell you, one look at Borris' super dooperly cute face with the long ears, of course the first thing you want to do is pet his soft donkey nose.  I think that donkeys are typically pretty shy and Borris was no exception.  Every time I would walk toward him he would back away giving me the cold shoulder.  Here, Borris, can I lure you with some greens?  Nope.  Brin told me not to worry, that he would get used to me being around the finca and even though he may be the "most moody donkey on the planet", he would come around.

Every day I walked from the main house out to the huerta to perform my daily gardening and greens gathering tasks.  After a few days, I suddenly heard this clomp, clomp, clomp sound behind me.  I turned around to find out that I was being followed by a donkey, whose curiosity had finally gotten the better of him and outweighed his shyness.  Well, almost.  As soon as I acknowledged his presence, Borris stopped and averted his eyes, dum dum dee dum…minding my own business.  When I put out my hand to pet him, he took a step back.  Giving him his space and time to trust me, I turned back around and again headed toward the huerta.  Lo and behold, after a few steps, Borris resumed his stalking game and followed me to the huerta!  This went on for about a week until he finally let me pet his soft nose.  That was it…best buds for life!  Don’t get me wrong, as close as we became, he still had his moody days when he didn’t feel like getting his nose pet; that’s right, Borris, just take your blood orange snack and take off.  Fine.  You can’t come to my birthday party.

CHOMP!

Speaking of snacks, for about half the time we were at the Finca Los Tres Alcornoques, Borris and the sheep were penned right next to the huerta, with only a flimsy fence between the ravenous beasts and the vegetables desperately attempting to survive in their overgrown patch.  I already mentioned the innocent donkey face look that would make you give him anything he wants; I’m surprised any of the other animals received their promised sack of greens what with Borris hanging his head over the huerta fence begging for scoobie snacks!

The finca was designed to have several areas in which to rotate the sheep and Borris so that they will always have green grass and plants to nibble on.  A few weeks into our stay, the remaining green grass in their current paddock had been completely gobbled down, which meant that it was time to switch to a different area.  Unfortunately, the next area in the rotation needed some fence repairs because there were a few areas in which the sheep could escape.  With summer rapidly approaching and so as not to let the last bit of grass growing on the finca go to waste, Brin penned Borris in the questionable fence section and the sheep in the next section. 

The following morning we heard a desperate, pitiful donkey bray from Borris’ new pen.  As I had not yet heard one peep out of Borris since we had been living on the finca, I was slightly concerned.  Brin warned me that I should check on him because there is always a possibility that this bray is the cry, “Help!  I tried to escape and now I’m stuck!”  She said that while theoretically he cannot escape, the little fence would not stop the mischievous donkey from nibbling on and potentially creating a hole in the fence.  Apparently, one year, while penned adjacent to the pig domain, Borris managed to free the pigs!  Too funny!  As it turned out, the bray was simply, “Come play with me!  I’m bored without my little sheep friends (even though I try to kick them in the head when they come near my food)!”

One of the highlights of the San Vicente farm stay was the day I finally got to ride Borris!  He had been trained for riders and in fact, Brin had hoped that her daughter would take to riding him which would also serve as a justification for his presence on the finca.  Alas, the little seven year old had no interest unless of course someone else wanted to ride him.  Go figure. 

Anyway, after fitting him with what was actually a pony saddle, thus barely fitting around his big donkey belly, Borris and I took a test lap around the front yard just to make sure he was happy with me on his back and to make sure the saddle felt secure.  Soon we were off down the lane, clomp, clomp, clomp…uh, Borris, you’re going a little fast…uh, did I mention that it had been a while since I had ridden (i.e. at least three years)…oh, boy, just hold on, wait, this in an English saddle (i.e. no horn)!  Don’t worry, I got the hang of it and we ended up having a blast!  Borris was happy to be getting some exercise and I was happy to see more of the countryside.  We saw some big ol' pigs, horses, cows, fruit trees and even more cork trees.  We got barked at by a huge vicious dog.  We were trotting happily along...wait, a fork in the road…do I forge ahead or just turn around now?  As most of you know, my sense of direction is not always the tippy toppest, hence the slight trepidation at the fork in the road.  Luckily, the two finca dogs, Marta and Filly had decided to come along on our ride and I was confident that if I lost my way, they would be able to lead us home.  Unfortunately I do not have any pictures of this lovely countryside jaunt because Jonathan wanted to take a picture of me riding away, but the only problem with that was that I rode away without the camera!  Oops!

Well, we managed to find our way back to the finca without incident and I found that I had made a friend for life!  Clearly Borris loved the ride because after I removed his saddle and got us some water, we parked in the shade to cool off where he repeatedly nuzzled and cuddled me with his big white nose.  You see why I call him my finca BFF?  Borris, I miss you already!

Borris & Baby Bird