We've moved!

Check us out at our new WordPress site: http://ruralcommunication.wordpress.com/

See you there!

Green (organic) eggs and ham … and coffee!

I stopped in at my favourite coffee stand in Crescent Valley two days ago and in addition to an utterly delightful cup of uber dark java, I also had an opportunity to buy … green eggs.
I thought the hand-written sign was a joke: Green and brown eggs - $5 / doz.

“Did someone have eggs left over from Easter?” I asked. “No. The lady up the street has a chicken that lays green eggs.” This is too good to be true! First organic chicken manure and now organic green eggs. I’ve only ever heard of green eggs in Dr. Seuss. My mind was spinning! “A new way to get kids to eat eggs. A new way to get mothers to purchase eggs for $5 per dozen. A ready complement for organic chicken manure - $25 for the package.”

“Does she have a green pig?” I asked.

I bought the eggs out of sheer principle. We had them for breakfast, with ham. My children pulled their chairs around the stove and watched with eager anticipation to see if the insides were green too. They kinda were. While they were cooking we proceeded to recite every single page of the book “Green Eggs and Ham” by heart. It was the first time my son almost ate an entire egg and the whole experience made me laugh, all day long.

What does this have to do with rural communication? Nothing. Everything. Where else can you have a 15 minute conversation about the nature of things, buy a cup of coffee, green eggs, blown glass straws and ornaments from the glass blower who also lives “up the street” and homemade chocolate chip cookies? It’s not promoted, tweeted, or even advertised. It’s just one of those face-to-face, spur of the moment, “stop by sometime” things that I could not have planned better if I tried.

It’s all organic chicken manure

So, I’m driving to Trail, B.C., today and what do I see? A big, flashing sign. The kind they use for road closures and stuff. Except this one says “ORGANIC CHICKEN MANURE”.

Really? I was so moved by it (in the heart, not the bowel), that here I am, two years later, resurrecting my blog. It made me laugh. Only in rural B.C. Perhaps only in the West Kootenay. I dunno.

I brought the organic chicken manure topic up at dinner tonight. “What does it take to create organic manure?” I asked. I dummied it down a bit for the 6-year-old at the table. “What does it take to have an organic poo?” I asked. “Easy” say the kids. “Organic ice cream.”

Right! The chickens, in order to be organic, must be eating organic ice cream, which thereby makes them have organic poop. It then gets shoved into a plastic bag and sold to gardeners, which by in large live in rural areas, for $10 more than the stuff they can get out of their own chicken coops.

This, my friends, is brilliant. Marketing at its finest with a flashing street sign for communication. They should add someone dressed as a chicken and actually open an ice cream stand. Think of the possibilities! I wonder if it comes in different flavours …