Equus Asinus

After two weeks delay on the planned changeover to the new Equus Asinus blog, I have sorted out the technical problems and found time to organize the new format. I suggest new readers start with the “About” pages. I have written part one, and there are two more parts to come. The Brother Lapin Pilgrimage blog remains intact at the old address but will not be updated again.

The delay to the new blog arrangements is perhaps partly due to the other holiday projects that have been dividing my time. The donkeys needed more stable space in the winter, as the foals are now pretty well full-grown.  It is a simple construction of timber, fibreglass roofing and split canes to provide insulation from the heat.

It has been remarkably hot – more than usual – and so only part of the day can be used for outdoor work.  Then it is necessary to escape to the Bar Cantonet and drink beer. The donkeys food store also needed to be properly reconstructed and that is now completed too. That also involved a lot of time in the sun and therefore necessitated tactical withdrawal to the Bar Cantonet for beer.

Then I had the bright idea of moving the donkeys’ food manger from the far end of the stable to the end where I do the food mixing with a pitchfork (a mix of mostly straw with some alfalfa for taste), and I constructed an L-shaped manger around the area where I do the mixing, so I can load up the manger easily when I am pushed for time in the mornings.

This project required quite a lot of sawing and drilling and hammering and screwing things up, in every possible way, and that in turn led to a very urgent need to get out of the sun from time to time and have a few more beers in the Bar Cantonet.

Then, just when the heat of August couldn’t get more unbearable, my friend Carl asked me if I would like to do a day’s labouring for him, helping to cut down an enormous pine tree in a garden in Alfaz del Pi. We set off cheerily, playing the Monty Python lumberjack song as we drove to the job, and then spent the day sweating and puffing in the unrelenting full heat of the day, manhandling sticky chunks of pine tree with the sap oozing out (wrong time of year for cutting down trees!) and all of this time in the sun required a very special effort in the Bar Cantonet at the end of the day. Paid for by Carl.

I suppose there could be some connection between all this and my tendency to fall asleep immediately on sitting down at the computer to advance on the next stage of the transfer from the Brother Lapin blog to the new Equus Asinus blog, so my apologies if it has been later arriving than promised.  As you can see, this has been largely due to the hot weather and technical problems at the Bar Cantonet. Some cope with the heat by scratching and some with beer in the Bar Cantonet.  But the new blog is finally prepared.  The basic design is finished but there is much work to be done now in adding the content and bringing over some of the archives from Brother Lapin’s Pilgrimage.  Enjoy.