Sticks and Stitches, Narrows, VA
Mark and Venita Skidmore began selling handmade woodcrafts over thirty years ago as a hobby the two can participate in together. Mark is a retired crime scene investigator for the local Sheriff's Office and Venita is an elementary school teacher assistant. They enjoy selling their crafts at fairs and festivals throughout the mid-Atlantic region, and look forward to meeting new people. Together, they make a wide variety of quality wooden items including potato & onion bins, kitchen trash cans, deacon's benches, shelves, tables, primitive items, painted decorative yard art, bird feeders, children's toys, Christmas items, treasure or blanket chests, and a favorite of children all over – “Gooney Birds”.
Gooney Birds are handmade marionettes of a goofy-looking bird. They are suitable for children from about three years old to teenagers. Every summer, Venita and Mark teach countless children how to “walk a bird”. Mark offers the following story about how Gooneys came to be – a story he calls…
“The Legend of the Gooney Bird”
I was digging in my back yard one day when I found what I thought was a smooth oval rock. I took it inside and washed the dirt off and saw it was an egg – a little bigger than a chicken egg. Well, I didn't know what kind it was so I took it to the college and showed it to the scientists and they told me it was a Gooney Bird egg. I said, “What?” and they said, “Yeah – these things have been extinct for 5000 years!”
So, I did what any man would do – took it home and put it in the microwave. Four minutes and thirty seconds later and BEEP – one of these things popped out! It ran around for a little while and laid some more eggs and I hatched those and… well, to make a long story short, we now have eight microwaves that run 24 hours a day at our house. You should see our electric bill!
