{"id":1294,"date":"2013-02-27T17:52:42","date_gmt":"2013-02-27T22:52:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromthecreek.com\/blog\/?p=1294"},"modified":"2013-02-27T17:52:42","modified_gmt":"2013-02-27T22:52:42","slug":"donkies-claire-wallace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromthecreek.com\/?p=1294","title":{"rendered":"DONKIES Claire Wallace"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DONKIES_ClareWallaceBLOG\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Haffas Farm. Family name? Think again. \u201cHalf-assed, of course,\u201d chuckles Claire Wallace. \u201cMy husband and I both had full-time jobs and no spare time, and then we bought a couple of asses without really knowing what we were doing. Pretty half-assed, don\u2019tcha think?\u201d<\/p>\n

Claire is small and lively, hurling loaves of bread through the air to feed her herd. She used to have horses\u2014wild mustangs\u2014until she visited her daughter in Virginia. There, at a farm show, she saw donkeys and walked out saying, \u201cI\u2019ve got to have me a mule.\u201d And so she acquired Jack. She bought him thinking he was eight or nine, and she laughs as she recalls dealers saying, \u201cYou bought old Jack?\u201d He was probably closer to thirty, she admits, but \u201che gave me lots of babies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want to go home to Maine without a donkey, and that\u2019s how I got Jack. But I didn\u2019t know how much donkeys holler, either. I opened the door once after we were on the road, and he hollered so bad I slammed it shut and wouldn\u2019t open it again till I got home. I told my husband, \u2018Come out here and listen to this.\u2019 I opened the door, but Jack was silent. It took three days before he began to holler again.\u201d<\/p>\n

She points out Gladys Done, named because it took her so long to be born. \u201cI birthed her right here, but she just didn\u2019t want to come out. When she finally did, I just took her in my arms and said, \u2018Ain\u2019t you glad it\u2019s done?\u2019\u201d Claire grins, delighted at her joke. \u201cAnd that\u2019s Elvis,\u201d she says, pointing to a shaggy donkey, \u201ccuz of the long hair. This here is Molasses, see it\u2019s got asses in it! And Clementine, one of Jack\u2019s babies. She is a darling, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not every one appreciates asses, though. She was chastised by her boss for having people talk to her about Jack while she was at work. \u201cPeople used to come in and ask how my ass was, heck, we thought that was pretty funny. But the manager didn\u2019t. Said tourists wouldn\u2019t understand. So I had to tell them to stop.\u201d The state wouldn\u2019t let her have Halfass on her license plate, either.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told them, \u2018Read the bible, you\u2019ll find asses there, so why can\u2019t I use it?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was born right by that telephone pole,\u201d she points to it with her ready laugh. \u201cThis was my grandparents\u2019 place, called Verandah Flats. They rented cabins. There was a two-hole outhouse and a pump in the kitchen. \u2018Running water\u2019 they advertised. Yeah, if you put it in a bucket and ran with it.\u201d Claire bends over chuckling. \u201cBut I don\u2019t know how they did it, grandfather on crutches, a forty-year-old horse on the back pasture to feed. It\u2019s a lot of work having animals.\u201d<\/p>\n

She has no regrets, no wishes she had explored the world a bit more. \u201cWhy?\u201d she asks. \u201cI see folks I went to high school with coming back now. They went away, got rich, and now they want to come home. But they spent thirty years in some noisy city. Can you believe it? All that time working to save money so they could come back here. Heck, they shoulda done like me, just never left. I have it all right here.\u201d She gives one of the donkeys, Clementine, a big hug. Half-assed Farm? Think again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Excerpt from Maine Vanities,<\/em> a collection of essays about the people and stories behind vanity license plates.<\/p>\n

These short portraits capture Maine individuality. There is quirkiness, compassion, and humor. While passions range from skiing to solving Mensa puzzles, and ages from 14 to 91, enthusiasm, curiosity, and delight in sharing the story behind their plate and their bit of Maine is the common thread.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Haffas Farm. Family name? Think again. \u201cHalf-assed, of course,\u201d chuckles Claire Wallace. \u201cMy husband and I both had full-time…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[72,104,25],"tags":[104],"class_list":["post-1294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-day-trips","category-maine-vanities","category-otter-creek","tag-maine-vanities"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3djTm-kS","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromthecreek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromthecreek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromthecreek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromthecreek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromthecreek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1294"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/fromthecreek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1307,"href":"https:\/\/fromthecreek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1294\/revisions\/1307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromthecreek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromthecreek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromthecreek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}