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By THERESA REYNOLDS
Rappahannock Newg Special Writer
High temperatures and humid air fail to disturb the two young mothers playing with their infant sons at Peyton Farms.
To keep cool and happy the ladies, Georgia and Emily, take many dust baths and encourage their month-old sons, Jackson and Virgil, to do the same.
Georgia and Emily are pretty donkeys belonging to Linda and John Postelle. Like horses, they believe that dust is just the thing for enjoying a summer day. Unlike horses, they don’t shake the dust off, except to blink it out of their eyes and shake off their noses and ears. Their origins in North Africa and long service in the Mediterranean endowed the breed with a desire to keep a protective coating as insulation against heat and cold, to discourage flies and clean their skin.
“TTiey’re always covered with dirt, except for a very few minutes after they’re bathed,” explained Linda Postelle. “Any time you pet them, you’ll raise a cloud of dust.”
Except for their protective coat of dirt, the donkeys are pretty and dainty, with beautiful long ears and a very calm manner. “Donkey” is not really the correct name for Emily, Georgia and their • two handsome boys. Linda explained that these animals are mammoth jack stock and should be called jacks or jennets, not donkeys or burros.
A mixture of African and southern European stock produced the mammoth jack, bred to provide a large, sturdy animal suitable for siring (with a sturdy mare) the mules needed on American farms.
In 1787 the father of our country became as well the father of the American mule when George Washington, interested in the mule as a draft animal, accepted the gift of a jack and two jennets from the king of Spain.
Gen. Lafayette heard of Washington’s interest and sent Washington a coal black jack and several jennets.
Washington crossed the two
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