I may have said before that when I am asked if I’ve been lucky in life I often reply that I have neither good luck nor bad luck but ANCIENT GREEK LUCK. What I mean by this of course is that either it’s staggeringly bad news like your ancestors left you a plague dowry that will kill all your grandchildren when they marry OR it’s amazing fortunate luck like the bastard son you gave up at birth has inherited the acropolis and now rules the kingdom. It’s all good or all bad, And sometimes its both.
I was reminded of this over the weekend when we observed the beaver festival that never came and felt sad for all the moments that would never be. And then, just as we were wistfuling all over ourselves a new beaver mural suddenly appeared in Martinez (just down the street from where I used to live) and a huge beaver box arrived on our doorstep.
Allow me to explain.
Since Ben Goldfarb has published his amazing book I have been getting contacts from folks across the nation that support beavers or like our story and want to visit or support beavers in their area. This is very nice, take the woman from New York said she liked the book so much she was planning on coming to the festival!
But one such contact was from a chiropracter in DC who had been collected beavers toys all his life and when he read the book wanted to donate them to us, I told him that we would love to use them as prizes at the festival if he was willing for them to go to good homes over the years and he shipped them out.
It was such a long time coming I had nearly forgotten. But they arrived Monday after the festival that never came. And we got to spend the day doing this. Items from Canada and Japan. Antiques, dog toys and adorable knock-offs. My favorite is a beaver with a giant tail that doubles as a coin purse with a zipper.
Because I have “GREEK LUCK”.
So we’ll go through and pick out what gets given first…and what kind of beaver quiz or challenge folks will earn them with…There were two folkmanis and we snatched them away for the regular stash.
Oh and that same weekend? Emily Fairfax was doing this. And no matter how smart you think you are about beavers, you really should listen all the way through.
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Have a safe and glorious fourth of July, by the way. And in case you need it, here’s an amazingly patriotic reminder.
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Isn’t that marvelous? Turns out Wes and Margie the two helpers who came to our festival last year will come up in March and get whatever materials we can share, like our beaver lawn signs and some larger artwork so that we can be there in spirit, showing them 14 years of support and cheering them on.
One of the things I will miss most is the magical friday we spent alone with Amy in the park as she chalks out the design and begins to cast her magic spell. Jon and I usually bring her coffee and lunch and set up a tent to give her a shady picnic between labors.
