Donkey Society of Victoria

Antique tractors, working horses & donkeys

Sat, 18 Dec 2010 14:19:49 +1100

This was the second annual Heritage Festival to be held at Colac and this year Jan Murray was asked by the organisers to arrange for donkeys to be there. Jan did a fantastic job to make sure that the donkeys had an excellent working area and maximum exposure to the public.
The donkeys shared the arena with some hundreds of vintage tractors, a couple of steam engines, a Vintage tractor pull, and also working draft horses. This was not a problem as there was plenty of room for all, and the horse owners were quite happy to have the donkeys there. In fact, the donkeys certainly raised their profile with the horse people this weekend!
Lyl Drayton, who is a friend of ours, had a wagon there with 2 huge logs made of about 14ft lengths of telegraph pole. He was snigging these logs around with one of his Clydesdales and also using a horse to load these 2 poles on the wagon with a chain and pulley affair to roll the logs up 2 planks to the wagon.
I was snigging a fence post with Cindy, and Lyl jokingly pointed to his log and said I should try doing it with a decent log. So I suggested he hitch Cindy up to it.
He was quite sure she would not be able to move it, however she calmly pulled away and towed it in a big circle, much to his amazement. We then also used her to pull the log up onto the wagon and she did it 3 times with no effort. There was great interest from many of the exhibitors in watching all this. Unfortunately we had no spare people around to take a photo, but Jan has video to prove it!!!
We also used Cindy in harness to go between the rows of tractors and past the moving steam engine. She is such a good girl that she did it safely with no fuss.
Jan’s donkey also pulled an assortment of gear around. It was great fun to have so many different implements to use, some of which I had never tried before.

MINI COMBINED DRIVING EVENT

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 21:07:31 +1100

Saturday morning saw all hands busily engaged in marking the dressage arena and setting out, numbering and lettering the cones course and marathon obstacles.  Five donkeys in single harness fronted up for this new challenge, along with their drivers, and grooms, we also had four visitors, who were promptly put to work, as well as each having a turn as a groom, either in the competition or as a pleasure drive (a 'groom' is a passenger in a CDE, so isn't expected to actually groom the donkey for you!)  The drivers were advised of the rules, always best to know the rules, even if you intend to ignore them! Possibly the strangest rule is that the groom must remain mute in the dressage and cones, so technically if the driver gets lost the groom is not allowed to help, but can scream, shout and direct the driver in the marathon section!  Gwyn Wise, an experienced and successful carriage driver borrowed from the horse world, designed our courses, judged the dressage and was steward on the marathon obstacles, our visitors, when not grooms, did a great job as pencillers, time keepers and also scored the cones course.  The dressage judge's job is two-fold; the main task is to allocate the points, for each group of movements, as required by the test, and performed by the competitor. The second task comes under the heading of 'Comments' here a good judge is able to both encourage and educate each competitor.  An impromptu competition that evening, as to who had the most 'humorous' or 'telling' comment on their score sheet indicated we had a very good judge!  Thanks to our very helpful visitors the competition progressed with ease and speed. Thanks also to generous donations: Brenda Allen & Pat Streefkerk certificates, Toe Powell and Murray families mugs & glasses, everyone was able to take home a keepsake.  At Saturday nights BBQ we were joined by Phil Dumesny & Chris Trotter.
There were only the three of us left to sleepover, Pat, Hans and Jan, as Ricci and Dominic Powell had other commitments on Sunday so the Toe-Powell family slept at home.  Sunday morning five donkey and five drivers did a little practice on their dressage and cones before stepping out for a drive along the river with a loop through the township and around the sports ground.  A bit of excitement early in the drive when Grace's swingletree broke away from her jogger landing on the road behind her with traces still attached. James and Grace with cool heads and calm temperaments were able to remedy the situation without incident and we all continued on. Next it was Jan and Donna's turn, when they got separated from the group by two pushbikes, it was all very calm, Donna just said 'I'd rather go back the way I came, than stand here and give way to 'those things'! Next it was Grace that raised our heart rates, again, when she insisted on getting a closer look at a freight train, before deciding maybe that wasn't such a good idea, at which point Njika and Donna, who had been watching with interest, decided to follow suit and leave the scene!  Pat and Mandy were the only combination that failed to raise their individual heart rates at any stage. Hans and Serena after calmly leading us past a goat on a tether had a little flutter at the sight of a mans behind sticking out of a garage as they went past. (It was not a bare behind! ) Inverleigh is always a good learning experience for the donkeys, especially when accompanied by a steading influence like Mandy, with trains, bikes, prams, lots of dogs, goats, sheep, horses etc. and the new challenge of the mini CDE was great fun.

For the love of chocolate

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 20:42:31 +1100

Wouldn't you reckon that an end of year break up after two day of outings would be relaxing, perhaps leaning back in the deckchair trying to decide which yummy item to eat or what flavour cold drink you want to sip?
Oh no, the DSV camp at Mirboo North ended up with a brain-stretching, nail-chewing, fiendishly devised quiz. Not casual trivial pursuit style fun, but a kaleidoscope of knowledge spanning the arts, history, international relations, geography and animal physiology. All thought up by the apparently devilishly-inspired and tortuously-minded Dianne Toe. She must be such a ....oh, no, sorry, can't say that in a public place. But you get the idea.
Now I happened to be on the winning team & no small thanks are due to the presence of young Dom Powell who knows amazing stuff about donkeys in literature and films. Amazingly clever boy that. I'd have thought Barbara Taylor would be the brains trust/power house on the team but Dom blitzed her, hooves down. However Barbara's very late night the evening before which had some kind of connection with Pam Newton visiting and consumption of alcohol may have been an influencing factor. Sure Barbara, it was a hot afternoon and one's blood had gone south to digest lunch....
To top it off, our hostess' dog ate my winners' decorated bag stuffed with chocolates. Being on a low-chloresterol diet, I haven't been allowed choccy. Well, not so as Ross could notice. And then just as I convinced myself I could let down the defences through the festive season and eat choccy, Heather's big Scottish deerhound Ruby ate my treasure, net bag and all! I won't tell you what Heather had to do to figure out who was the culprit in her family, and I believe husband Roger was on the suspect list too. [Turns out Roger was smirking because he had hidden some of Heather's china donkeys, not because he'd guzzled my rightfully inherited choccys.]
Guess if I talk about the donkey outings part of the camp I'll feel better.
Well, quite a crew of us went out on Saturday morning. Two donkeys in harness, four donkeys ridden and one led behind a cart were supplemented by two cyclists and several pedestrians plus a pram. Green donkeys benefited from becoming acquainted with the bicycles and the pram. Really. Good for their riders' skills too. I should know because I was riding one of the green donkeys. Wheeeeeeee!
We wound downhill along tracks through a pine plantation to the Mirboo North - Boolarra Rail Trail. Heather led us on a circuit that came home via snaking bush tracks, with a total distance of approximately 10 kilometres. In between we lunched at the former site of Darlimurla Station. Ross managed to sneak up behind Ricci Powell during lunch and gave her a terrible fright when he suddenly roared like a monster in a rage. Everyone thought it hysterically funny except one somehwhat huffy and now nervous teenage girl.
Saturday evening, we were joined at Mirboo North Brewery for dinner by Sarah and Neil McCluskey, Leanne Davey, Gary Ricardo andRosemarie O'Shannon. I don't recall a lot about dinner except that we had to wait so long to be fed I was almost beyond hungry. Some people visited the bar regularly as an alternative tactic. They said they were sampling the home brewed beer varieties for scientific reasons.
The weather was really lovely & we all had a great time. The donkeys behaved pretty well, though some were encountering new obstacles such as grating covers in the ground, white lines, bitumen roads, motor mowers, the war memorial and other town-related experiences! The donks who'd never met ice-creams before found out that it's not all bad in town.
Ross and I led the way through the park in our cart [Cody tied behind at that stage, he really is green] and managed to take a cross-country approach, which to our surprise was followed by everyone else. [Baaaaa]. We chatted to curious passers-by in the park while we waited for the reporter and blamed Heather for getting the meeting time wrong. [In fact the misunderstanding was about the meeting place!]
On the way home we met an excavator, a motor bike in a narrow spot on the trail and loose barking dogs. Now and then we got the impression we were being followed by a couple in a white station wagon car but we managed to shake them off by diving back into the bush. They must have heard about our Chrissy lunch though because we met them back at Heather's place! [Must actually thank Pat and Hans Streefkerk for taking photos and videos of the outings].
As I said, Barbara and Pam arrived for the food and drink part - typical! There was plenty of chat and laughter, and I can highly recommend members to turn up to activities like this. Just keep any choccys up high out of reach of big dogs and small children!

ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF VICTORIA - SUMMER ROYAL SHOW

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 16:28:57 +1100

This was the first time donkeys have been represented at the Summer Show, and we were very pleased to be invited. We accepted for the Saturday and Sunday. Hans and I took Wendanjo Cindy and Wendanjo Serena, and Jenny Jones, accompanied by her granddaughter Brooke, and friend Ashley, took Break O Day Bridie.

The facilities were excellent, the whole event was very well organised and we were made very welcome. They had asked for lots of details and photos of the donkeys before the show and made excellent signage on the outside of the stables, both for the DSV and for each donkey, breed information about each and photos. We were housed in temporary stabling along one side of the arena along with Hafflingers, Paints, Morgans, Gypsy Vanners, Arabians, Working Horse Soc., Percherons, Brumbies and others. We had stables for the donkeys and an open stable for our display-board etc. We were able to park immediately behind, with all facilities close at hand. Jenny brought a gate to put across the doorway of her stable, so that Bridie could be seen and patted, we took milk crates for smaller people to get a close look at the bigger ones, and took some inside for 'cuddles' and close-up looks. The donkeys could all see out and watch the action and we could sit in front, available for people to talk to, and still see all the arenas and watch the classes. It took a few minutes to persuade the donkeys to step over the yellow bar in the stable doorway the first time, but after that they were very happy to step into 'home', after being out for exercise. Bridie called to potential visitors a few times, but none of the horses reacted at all. Our two kept very quiet!