|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The famed Barron Park donkeys recently got a new member, April, who has joined the company of longtime resident Perry as well as Buddy, who arrived in 2020.
Formerly living in Salinas, April is a 14-year-old white female miniature donkey with big beautiful eyes.
Michael Holland, a donkey handler with the Barron Park Donkey Project, which cares for the animals, said recently, “It’s funny that a lot of times the first thing the kids notice are the eyes.”
On Sunday, Oct. 8, Buddy and April met their admirers at Bol Park on their weekly meet-and-greet outing. While Buddy was enjoying his playtime, April was taking her time to become approachable.
“She doesn’t rush into things. She stands back and watches for a while, decides whether she is okay with it or not. I wouldn’t call her shy. She is very watchful,” he said.
It took her about two to three months to warm up to him, he added.
Miniature donkeys are very much like big dogs with personality; they are affectionate in nature, said Jenny Kiratli, their lead handler and spouse to Holland.
“These guys are very intelligent. They study us. When April first got here, she was very standoffish, but she watched everything. She was assessing if this was a good place for her,” she said.
April may be reserving judgment, but people who come to see the donkeys are unabashed in their enthusiasm for the four-legged Bol Park residents.
A wide-eyed, 2-year-old Charlotte recently couldn’t stop smiling upon seeing the donkeys.
Her dad, who brings her from their home in Mountain View, said, “My daughter is a big fan of the donkeys. She saw them for the first time over the summer and she has not stopped talking about it.”
Another visitor, Elijah, 10, lives around the block from the animals.
“I just really enjoy the donkeys a lot. They are so friendly and adorable. And they help me feel relaxed. It’s always nice to say hi to them,” he said.
Elijah has visited them at least once a week since he moved to the neighborhood in 2022.
Donkeys have lived in Barron Park since the 1930s, when the Bol family owned the property, Kiratli said.
“The story goes that they went to get horses for their kids and horses were too expensive, so they came back with donkeys,” she said. “They had six donkeys, is what I heard.”
The Donkey Project was born in the 1990s when neighbors started taking care of them.
“Donkeys are a major part of the neighborhood. Some people remember them from their childhood,” she said.
Kiratli said April’s owner had a small farm but had to move to a regular house and needed a new home for her.
“Nobody was taking her because she has this very serious chronic hoof condition,” she said. “We did not know about it until we got there.”
April, who arrived in March, also has other health issues, like insulin resistance, that require treatment by specialists in Davis.
“It’s costing us a lot of money,” Kiratli said. “We all put a lot of time into these animals, a lot of love.”
In recent months, since April joined the pasture, things have changed there. It’s more complicated as April needs someone to give her hormones every morning because she is not spayed and was showing aggressive behavior towards Buddy.
“They don’t spay horses or donkeys,” Kiratli said.
In addition, Perry — the oldest and most famous donkey of the lot, who modeled for the movie Shrek — is in the hospital for treatment of a gastro-intestinal problem.
Between April’s and Perry’s medical problems, the project is in need of donations, said Kiratli, who is working on several fundraising plans.
“If people love these donkeys, we do need them to support them with their money,” she said.
Over 30 volunteers currently work with the project, and new ones are joining.
Recently, three seventh grade Girl Scouts — Isaure, Sophie and Claire — volunteered for weed-removal at the paddock. Chris, an 11-year-old Eagle Scout, was also at the paddock to build compost bins from recycled wood.
“I bike past here every day to school. I thought I could help out,” he said.
With just the right amount of design and building as well as community usefulness, the compost bins are a great project for a scout, Kiratli said.
The need for the bins arose from April’s not-so-endearing habit of walking through fresh manure, which is used to make compost.
“Maybe she is eating the leaves there. That is what one of the handlers thinks. That’s a lovely story. But I think she is also eating manure,” Kiratli said with a chuckle. “The vet says ‘Oh yeah, they do that.’ Dogs do, too.”
The compost, sold at $20 for a bag of 40 pounds, helps the project rake in $2,200 each year to pay for the animals’ care. In that sense, the donkeys pay for their own food.
Kiratli expressed her love for the project as a community activity.
“We are always talking to people in the community. I can’t go anywhere in this neighborhood, and sometimes elsewhere in Palo Alto, without somebody saying ‘Jenny, how are the donkeys?’ Everybody cares about the donkeys.”
The third annual Halloween Bray Parade, which started during the pandemic, will be held this year on Sunday, Oct. 29 in the Barron Park neighborhood.
April is expected to don the unicorn costume inherited from Perry while Buddy will play Pegasus.
“She seems like an obvious unicorn. Sometimes when she turns a certain way, the way her ears are, it looks like a horn from the side,” said Kiratli, who is thinking of a new costume for Perry.
People can meet the donkeys at Bol Park every Sunday from 10-11 a.m. and watch while they are fed at 5 p.m. More information about the Barron Park donkeys can be found at barronparkdonkeys.org.