A couple weekends ago, we packed up the camper and headed out to Trade Days! We always have lots of fun going to spend the weekend together exploring all the booths in search of treasure. The real treasure we come home with at the end of each Trade Days weekend is the time we spent together and the memories made along the way.
This was the first year we actually brought animals to sell. We brought several roosters, a few hens, a couple of breeding pairs and a trio. We were happy to see that our animals all appeared cleaner and better cared for than many of the others being sold, which would account for why they sold so quickly. Unfortunately, several of the vendors there were selling animals that had very clearly not been cared for. They were pitiful. Anyway...ours all sold within the first day, most were gone by early afternoon.
Part of what I love about Trade Days is just watching everyone. Trade Days is a combination of flea market, carnival (minus the rides), livestock sale, and yard sale. The things found for sale vary as widely as the people who come to look. I could find an out-of-the-way seat and just watch everyone all weekend.
Folks sell EVERYTHING. We've seen bear cubs, HUGE turtles, coyote babies, wolf cubs, snakes, and then of course there's the more mundane hunting dogs, pet puppies, and run of the mill farm animals.
We found a couple more pigs to raise. My freezer is just about empty of pork from our last crew.
John Wesley and I had been admiring (online) the blue-laced red variety of Wyandotte chickens, and had been talking about how we'd like to find a nice pair. Lo and behold, one of the men selling chickens close by us had this beautiful pair for sale. He had some really gorgeous chickens. (You didn't know chickens could be gorgeous, did you? Indeed.)
And of course, here's Romeo. We bought him at LAST year's Trade Days. He's just a young punk, but he's starting to strut around, trying to impress everyone on the place, not just Juliet, his peahen, but also some of the chickens--I don't think they're buying it, though! Peacocks don't develop the "eyes" on their feathers until they're about 3 or 4 years old, so it'll be a couple more years before he's truly impressive, but for now, he's sure funny to watch fanning out his imaginary feathers and wiggling his fuzzy hind quarters! We got to see the lady we bought them from again this year and Harold took a minute to stop and do an impromptu commercial for her telling one of the customers checking out her birds how happy we are that we bought from her and how knowledgable and helpful she has been to us. Hmmm, seems he should've gotten a commission from that sale!
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