Month of Makeovers Day 16: Veggie makeovers

Junking isn’t my day job, unfortunately.

Teaching is. I spent part of last week teaching kids about sheep, wool, and wool-spinning at our county fair. It’s the nation’s oldest agricultural fair—almost 200 years old! There’s a rabbit barn, a chicken barn, a flower show, a giant pumpkin weigh-off, baking exhibits, a sheep barn, dozens of food stalls . . . There’s a midway, which I always avoid like the plague, preferring to walk through the cattle barn and look at the cow mamas with their sweet little calves. There is even a rodeo in the arena, an event about which stodgy New Englanders don’t seem to know what to think. Men wearing plaid shirts, chaps, and Stetsons, completely unironically?

Of all the things to see and do at the fair, though, my favorite is the exhibit of vegetables decorated by children.

There are some straight-up jack-o-lanterns in the bunch

and kids who take their jack-o-lanterns that little extra step.

And one young lady who loves turquoise and glitter as much as I do!

There are familiar characters.

Here come the birds!

There’s the odd bug or two

And a zoo’s worth of mammals

Isn’t that trash-munching bear marvelous? The judges thought so, too.

I love the creativity of children. You can give them materials and teach them some skills, then just step back out of the way and watch what they make. When they’re working with no other thought than the sheer joy of creating, of experimenting, of seeing what happens, then it’s magic. I wish I could recapture that uncomplicated joy every time I sit down to make something.

It was a great couple of days at the fair!

See the entire list of projects for our Month of Makeovers HERE.