Donkey Head

Three cheers for the donkey! May it live forever.

It was once considered an inseparable working partner to farmers. Both in subsistence farming and in transport. Especially in the hill country, but today the donkey is an almost vanished species in the Algarve.

Fortunately, there are those who remember it, and who want to give it new value - in organic and regenerative farming, in nature tourism, or in conservation projects.

Isidoro Ramos, an artisan born in Paderne, chose esparto to celebrate it. And he makes decorative donkey heads in several sizes.

Esparto is a native plant, which Isidoro watches grow in the fields and hills of the Algarve until it is ready to be pulled, between July and September.

Once pulled, the esparto is left in the sun to take on a golden tone, and is then soaked, to become softer and workable. It takes shape in braids - the empreita - which are then coiled and stitched together, with a thick needle and jute or sisal cord, to make this donkey.

A donkey made purely for decoration. With a large, prominent muzzle, alert, pricked-up ears, and almost gentle eyes, on a head interwoven with colour. Which gives it a sense of joy and playfulness.

Isidoro Ramos won't let the donkey disappear. Nor the esparto. Nor the traditional craft techniques that his grandmother's and mother's hands taught him.