New At the Booth This Year

I always like to add something new to the booth each year. 

 Last year it was the baby quail (cheepers) pen, that has turned into the baby pen because this year we didn’t have baby quail but we had baby turkeys (poults).  But that wasn’t what was new this year, just changed up and recycled.

Our signs were new, the paint was barely dry Wednesday morning.  But it isn’t the only new thing. 

My produce basket that had indigenous vegetables in it.  Did you know that before the discovery of Americas the europeans knew nothing of tomatoes, squash, beans, pecans, corn, peppers……

So what is the other thing that is new?

A show case of eggs.  An old aquarium really.  Where we had an ostrich egg, and egg from a goose, turkey, chicken, duck and quail.  It got a lot of attention.  Most of the attention was good.  Some was very good, lots of great questions followed by great interaction with the public.

But some was frustrating.  Like explaining forty times over to one child that, “no, no chick came out of the egg, only the white and yolk out of the holes we made.  No, no chick will come out.  No, no chick came out.”  Argh.

But the best of the worst was when I turned from facing the pens to face the aquarium to see Anne, my helper, have her hands on the aquarium and see the aquarium rock back and forth.  For a split second I wondered why Anne would be rocking the aquarium.  I quickly realized that she was keeping it from falling!

There was an angry faced child on the other side with his big fat paws on either side of my glass aquarium shaking it liked a crazed fool.  It reminded me of the little girl in the movie Nemo.  I reached over Anne and the aquarium, grabbed it to arrest it from any further movement, looked the little creature in the eye and told him he could not shake my glass case like that!  He gave up.  Walked over to his mom and exclaimed to her that the stupid eggs wouldn’t crack.  She suddenly realized that he was doing something he shouldn’t and said sweetly, “You can’t do that dear, there are eggs in there.”    No apology to Anne or me.

Loudly I say, “Not to mention the glass aquarium!” 

I turn, totally shaken, Dirt predicted that my aquarium was going to hit the asphalt floor, and another fair-goer who has watched the entire incident and is standing with his mouth open says, “one a day, right?” 

To which I say, “you mean valium? Yeah.”

Other than that, I loved having my egg collection there.    So in light of that I will be making some sort of show case, most likely plexi-glass connected to a heavy base.  And we’ll add some different eggs from the same species.