"...The Foal of a Beast of Burden"

Kansas Bible Camp has a new addition to their herd of poison-ivy control. And I'm not talking about just another stinky goat. This my friends, is an ass christened Peanut. A farm donated him to the camp along with two ducks. Although these really add to our fairly new nature center, Peanut is kind of only here for one reason: once every three years, he is to be ridden by some kid for acting out Jesus's triumphal entry.
Yes, this past week at KBC happened to be the Christ week. Having a live donkey there REALLY helped people understand a bit more about our awesome Jesus. See, this donkey, like the one in the Bible, had never been ridden before last Monday. Guess what? This donkey STILL remains un-ridden! As soon as the blanket was placed on his back, the unwilling Peanut tried to buck it off, and then took off running with a camper still hanging on to its neck for dear life. Thankfully, this camper has had some experience with cowboy/rodeo life, and it wasn't that big of a deal. It was still funny, especially when Andrew tried to lead it back by its bridle and kids were making it extremely difficult by waving branches, and adding to the scariness of the situation by throwing these branches right in front of the donkey's path!
I don't want you to think this is a big, dangerous creature. It's only a donkey, not a mule. A mule would be bigger and a bit wilder. It spends its days wandering with the goats, and while it will follow an unsuspecting camper, it runs away from anyone who pursues it.

My first reason for writing a blog post about a donkey, though, is to tell of my absurd experience with Peanut. During sport-time, I wandered across the creek to feed the animals. After offering the donkey a handful of leaves, he was less concerned about standing close to me. Soon, he would let me pet him while I fed him, and not long after, he would follow me around the trees while I found leaves for him to eat. He began to sniff my back between mouthfuls, which I thought weird, so I decided it was time to go. "One more tree" I said to myself. As I reached for one last handful of leaves, I was in for a horrible shock. The ass bit my donkey! (okay, dumb joke) but the donkey really did bite my butt, and hard too! I ran all the way back to the nature center. As I stopped to take a breath, I heard galloping behind me. I gasped and turned around. Peanut was running towards me at full speed! Thankfully, he turned at the last second, giving me time to run to the bridge and across.
Later, after I told Tim, he said, "Well, now I guess I have to go beat up a donkey!" I started to tell him that the donkey really didn't mean it, but Tim interrupted me with "Wow! you really got him riled up! Look!" I looked across the creek, and between the trees, I could see Peanut still running, pacing by the gate to the bridge.