ON NEW YEAR’S EVE MORNING I peered out my motel room’s small window through a thick curtain of falling snow. It was a scene reminiscent of a Bergman film. Winter had settled in with a vengeance. Eighteen days of lessons, admonishments, and (mostly) unintended humiliation at the hands of the trainers, brightened by moments of their bizarre hospitality, were over. The progress I had made with Caleb, though fitful at best, provided at least some inkling of the challenges we would face in the months ahead.
Today, assuming that Laura Butti, the owner of Silver Rock Farm, could maneuver the stable’s horse trailer over the local snow-covered roads, my donkey would be traveling to his new home near New York City.
Six months before I found Caleb, I had searched for a stable that would accept a donkey. It proved much harder than I expected. Throughout the spring of 2001, I had visited six stables near my home in Rockland County. When I asked the stable owners if I could board a donkey on their premises, they shook their heads. “Donkeys kick and bite. They’re untrainable. Farriers and vets won’t touch them.”
Everything I had read about these animals suggested just the opposite, so I handed out copies of articles to prove that the myths about intractable donkeys were untrue. In the face of my relentless enthusiasm, the stable owners all fell back on their main weapon: they had long waiting lists for stalls. The owner of the fanciest stable implied that parents reserved stalls as soon as their future dressage champion was confirmed in utero. Stable after stable in the Hudson valley sent me away with the refrain: “A donkey? Why a donkey?” At the time, it was a reasonable question, one I hadn’t been able to answer — even for myself.
Silver Rock was my last option, and I was grateful when Laura admitted that she was “intrigued” by my desire to have a donkey. Her precondition was that I would take riding lessons for six months before I bought one. She ran a large program for children with special needs, and she and her oldest pony, Patches, proved patient with this nervous adult rider.
From the start of our friendship, I shared every detail of my quest to find a donkey, and Laura seemed as excited as I was about bringing Caleb home. Though Silver Rock was a dressage stable, like all the others in the area — and dressage was the last thing I wanted to learn — I was heartened when she allowed me to ride Patches on a woodland trail next to the property. The narrow, interconnected pathways would suffice until I learned to control my donkey. A glance at the near-whiteout conditions outside the motel window dimmed the happy vision for the moment.
Late that morning, a truck towing a two-horse trailer slid to a stop in the unplowed motel parking lot. I ran outside to greet the Silver Rock employees. “Welcome to Siberia!” I yelled, almost in tears at the sight of familiar smiling faces. Bonnie O’Hara, one of Silver Rock’s riding instructors, climbed down from the cab and landed in the knee-deep snow. I was glad she had come along. Despite her elfin size, she handled the biggest horses at Silver Rock with ease and good humor. With my rambunctious donkey, I desperately needed all the friendly help I could get.
On our way to the farm with my car in the lead, we caught up with the snowplow as it pushed the latest snow accumulation to the side. Here and there, twelve-foot-high banks of compacted snow threatened to topple onto the thin strip of pavement. I looked back at the truck and trailer fishtailing on the road down into Warsaw and back up onto the plateau. The driving conditions were iffy at best. A few miles beyond, I turned into the Bridgmans’ driveway and coasted across the all-too-familiar icy surface. Safely parked, I trudged back to the road to guide the trailer in.
Just a few feet into the driveway, Laura’s truck slipped sideways as it attempted the slight rise and plowed into a snowbank. Wrenching the truck from side to side, she reversed the cumbersome rig back onto the road. On her second attempt to enter the driveway, the back wheels of the truck slipped sideways and thumped against the banked snow. Laura backed up again, but this time she continued backing down the hill onto the road before pulling the rig over to the side and stopping.
Lou poked her head out her kitchen door and waved, hollering, “Coffee’s on.”
Laura and Bonnie walked up the drive to meet Lou. All business, Laura said, “We don’t have time for coffee. We have to stay ahead of this storm.”
As far as I could see, we were already way behind the storm. At least a month behind. With the horse trailer skidding all over the road, and the storm worsening by the minute, I hoped for a reprieve. I turned to Laura. “What if we wait until it stops?”
Laura turned to Lou. “When will it stop?”
“Oh, ’bout the end of February,” Lou said. No one except me laughed. She added, “Once it starts, it snows pretty much every day around here.”
“I have to get back to the barn,” Laura said. “I have a New Year’s date.” She strode back down the drive toward the trailer to help Bonnie lower the ramp. She waved. “Okay, let’s load up.”
Inside the barn, I found that Farley had already put on Caleb’s new monogrammed halter and had attached its matching turquoise-and-purple rope. As soon as the donkey’s nose poked out the barn door and caught the wind, he reeled back on his haunches.
“Come on, sweetie.” I stepped outside. “We’re going to your new home!” As I tugged gently on his halter, my feet slid out from under me. I more or less shimmied up his front leg to stand up.
The poor beast had ridden on a trailer only three times in his life, and each of these trips had been less than thirty miles. Silver Rock Farm was 325 miles away. Sensing the tension around him, he tucked his head and tail and dragged his hooves as if on his way to the glue factory.
Laura stepped carefully over to help. “Gee, he’s a lot bigger than I expected. I hope he fits in his stall.” She gripped his halter and spoke right into his big ear, “Come along, big man. Walk on.” Bonnie and I shoved against Caleb’s flanks while Laura pulled. An urgency in Laura’s voice overrode her calm, take-charge demeanor, with the expected result. He applied his four-hoofed locking brakes. This time all three of us slid to our knees.
Laura stood up, brushed off her pants, and said, “That’s it! No more nonsense, mister!”
Farley joined us, and with one person at each flank, we manhandled our stiff-legged prisoner as far as the trailer ramp. Just then a fierce wind gusted up the hill, knocking us off our feet again. Caleb looked up at the snow-covered ramp leading up to the dark maw of the open trailer and planted his hooves again. As relentless as the weather, and possibly more determined than a donkey, Laura said, “Just leave this to me. Stay back!”
I patted the donkey’s already-snow-caked back. “Poor thing. It’s okay, sweetie.”
Laura snapped at me, “Get out of the way, Margie. You’re not helping.”
Bonnie climbed into the trailer with an extra-long lead line and wound it around the bar inside. On the first attempt to winch him in, his neck stretched out like a giraffe’s, leaving his hooves still rooted to the spot. Unless Bonnie wrenched his head right off and sent it barreling into the trailer by itself, this donkey was going nowhere.
Just then, a small black car spun up the hill and stopped across the road from the trailer. A man stuck his head out the passenger-side window. “Need some help, ladies?”
When no one answered, two huge men wearing boots and barn coats squeezed out of the car. Without waiting for directions or an explanation, each man hoisted one of the trembling donkey hind legs until Caleb’s haunches rested on their shoulders. Ducking his flailing hooves and with Bonnie tugging from the front, Laura and me pushing his shoulders, we managed to stuff a squirming, terrified donkey up the ramp and inside. Bonnie quickly clipped Caleb’s halter to a short rope as Lou slotted the back bar in place. The guys picked up the ramp, already coated with an inch of new snow, and slammed it shut, sending a shudder and a snow shower right through the trailer. After I thanked them fervently, they returned to their car but waited.
I climbed into the front door near Caleb’s trembling head to reassure him. “It’s okay, Caleb.” It felt anything but okay. He snuffled and gasped in between brays, snot and saliva freezing on his whiskers. My heart went out to him; he had no idea where we were headed or why. And I felt helpless to make the situation better. “This isn’t good for him,” I said. “Let me towel him off and put his new blanket on.”
“He’ll be fine,” Laura said, with a touch of exasperation. I wanted to believe her. She was always the voice of calm and reason at her stable. She looked up at the sky and said, “We’ve got to go.”
Just in time for our departure, the rate of snowfall had increased from heavy to blinding. Laura and Bonnie climbed into the cab. As the truck’s wheels slithered sideways toward the ditch, Lou, Farley, the men, and I pushed the side of the truck and trailer until Laura guided the rig back up onto the crown of the road.
As soon as they made traction up the steep hill, I ran back to the house, hugged Lou, and ran for my snow-shrouded car. Lou called out, “Don’t you want to fill a jerry can with water? He’s used to it.”
“No time, I’m afraid,” I said as I reversed across the drive. I was already deferring to Laura, the horse expert in charge of my donkey’s new home, over Lou’s lifelong expertise with donkeys and mules. I hoped I wouldn’t regret leaving the water behind.
“Call when you arrive, you hear?” Lou said.
“Thank you for everything, Lou.” I turned toward the trailer. “I hope we make it.”
“Me, too,” she called, as she hurried toward the barn door.
Our vehicles slithered back onto the main road and headed toward Warsaw. On the downhill stretch into town, the truck slalomed right through the traffic light at the bottom of the slope. On the way out of town, I fell far back and watched with mounting dismay as the trailer tacked back and forth across both lanes, straining to clear the crest of the hill.
East of the county line, the clouds broke up, and the falling snow fell in soft veils. Even so, Laura’s truck struggled up the last slope, slipping sideways from ditch to ditch before turning south onto the connecting highway. Once we turned onto the interstate, Laura raced off. Soon I couldn’t keep up with her, even at eighty-plus miles an hour. I lost sight of the trailer for the last time soon after we turned east onto Route 17, a two-hundred-mile stretch of divided highway through the Catskills. My dread turned into outrage. Was this responsible driving? A couple of hours later, long after my last glimpse of the trailer, I began to fear I might not have Caleb very long, after all. Images of a bloody wreck, of twisted metal in a snowy ditch, flashed across my mind. If Laura kept driving so fast, she and Bonnie were headed for the Pearly Gates, with my donkey tooting his trumpet.
“Sheesh, Laura,” I said, “can’t your date wait?” I had seen her friend Bruce Mason at the barn. He’d started riding lessons about the same time I did. I had smiled to see another adult being led around on Patches.
I reached Silver Rock Farm in a state of postfury funk less than five hours after leaving Bridgman Stables. The trailer hadn’t arrived. I paced around the barns, unable to contain my anxiety. Despite my upset mood, I still found myself impressed by the stable’s size and level of activity. Even on New Year’s Eve, both the outdoor rings were full of riding students, their instructors calling out commands. All four paddocks were filled with horses or ponies, each wearing its own fitted blanket.
Fifteen minutes later, the truck and trailer inched down the driveway. Sure that I would find four frozen donkey legs connected to a stiff corpse in the back, I was thrilled when a pair of long ears appeared behind the icy window. A hoarse, snuffling plea sounded from deep inside the trailer.
Laura and Bonnie emerged from the truck cab. Relieved that all had arrived in one piece but overwhelmed from hours of fear, I blasted Laura about speeding on the snowy roads. She said in a placid voice, “Did we? Once we reached the interstate, the roads were clear.”
“You drove over three hundred miles in less than five hours! The roads were a mess!”
“Well, we made it okay, didn’t we?”
I couldn’t argue with that. Bonnie, Andre (the stable manager), and I joined Laura as she lowered the trailer ramp. The inside walls were coated with ice from Caleb’s sweat and breath. He was shaking all over. Unloading him proved nearly as difficult as loading him. The poor donkey’s joints seemed to have locked. Two of us needed to push on his chest and two more to pull his tail to back him down the ramp. I was shocked to see that he was coated with icicles of frozen sweat and rushed to fetch towels and his new blanket from my car.
Meanwhile, Laura, Bonnie, and Andre turned toward a commotion in the main ring. The horses in the ring bucked and reared and bolted to the far end with their terrified riders. An instructor sprinted past, shouting, “One of the horses in the barn leaped over his stall door! I can’t believe it!”
“What’s happening?” I asked Laura.
“The horses have never seen a donkey before.” She seemed unconcerned.
“It’s like we brought in a mountain lion!” Andre said.
Laura, serene despite the mayhem, and I guided a stiff-legged and dazed donkey around the barn to his new stall. Horses inside the barn kicked their stalls and snorted. One horse galloped past us and around the barn, with Andre and another girl in hot pursuit. Andre called over her shoulder, “He leaped right out of the paddock!”
If these expensive horses were freaking out and injuring themselves or their riders, I was sure that Laura wouldn’t let my donkey stay here, after all. I reminded myself that Silver Rock was the only stable in the county that would accept him. All of a sudden I feared that bringing him here had been a big mistake.
Laura disappeared into her tiny unheated office, reemerging five minutes later in a silvery-green velvet jumpsuit, a pearl necklace, and low suede boots. She said, “Have to be off. He’ll be fine. Let him settle in.” She tottered across the snowy drive, climbed back into the mud-and-salt-encrusted truck, and drove off for her date.
The barn was closing soon, but I wanted to fuss over Caleb a little. Unlike the other horses, an old mare named Ginger welcomed her odd-looking next-door neighbor. She stuck her head over the gate and nickered at him as I brushed his soggy fur. After I put on his new blanket and was closing the gate, I noticed a brand-new shiny brass nameplate affixed to it: CALEB’S DREAM, OWNER MARGIE WINSLOW. Laura had told me a few weeks earlier that the donkey should sport a fancier name, given that Silver Rock Farm was, after all, a dressage stable. She’d added the “Dream” part.
“Poor Caleb. More like a nightmare for you, isn’t it?”
He stuck his head over the stall gate, a mouthful of hay dangling from his lips. I passed him an apple and said, “Happy New Year, Caleb. You’re home now.”
Caleb’s new home at Silver Rock Farm (photo by Margaret Winslow)