Exclusive: We caught  author and photographer and blogger Jon Katz singing to a donkey at his upstate New York farm Thursday. Neighbors said it was not the first time. Katz, said the townspeople in Hebron, could often be heard singing to his donkey in the afternoons and evenings, when he snuck into the barn and thought noone was looking or listening. “He says he writes about animals dogs,” chuckled one farmer, “but it seems to us he hangs out with that donkey a lot.”  Our paparazzi were looking and listening.

The photographer wasn’t exactly sure of the song, but she said it sounded like “you light up my life.” Neighbors said they were not surprised. They said the writer was strange, and was sometimes seen crawling around on his belly in the mud photographing chickens while a woman, believed to be an artistic witch, or an art witch, yelled at him to get inside, stop singing to the donkey, and clean his lenses off of the dining room table.  She was seen tossing a camera bag out of the back door of the farmhouse and waving her arms around. When he saw the photographer, Katz ran inside the barn, hid in some hay bales and yelled through the closed door that he was J.D. Salinger reincarnated. We paid $14.00 for this photo.