Worth its weight in gold!

Living on the Bayou, I am constantly surrounded by all sorts of things to do with the water.  The Little Bayou House is more or less decorated like some sort of fishing camp.  This is not to be confused with the trendy "seaside" type decor that you see in all of the popular home decorating magazines but rather..a real "working" fishing camp.  I don't really mind and actually have come to embrace all of the trappings that go along with fishing/crabbing/shrimping.  So much so that today, I pondered just how to display a crab shell!  When I checked the crab traps a few days ago, one nice sized crab had shed his shell.  I was a bit too late to get him in his "soft-shell" stage so I just let him finish the process of hardening.  His castoff shell was still in the trap and this, my friends, was a source of interest.  I toted the discarded thing up the hillside to let it dry in the sun.

Now came the problem of displaying the empty exoskeleton.  The sun-drying had caused the shell to lose much of its bluish color. The crab's shell was more of a golden brown making it not have much appeal.  Michael was building me a case to use in displaying the crab and suggested that I repaint the crab to its original colors.  Ok...this was far easier said than done.  I have painted crabs on canvas and on gourds to some degree of satisfaction but painting an entire crab shell..legs, claws, shell..the whole thing, was a different story.  It looked HORRIBLE!   My crab received an instant bath!  I let the thing sun-dry again.  Ugh!  It faded even more.  Now, it was more of a sick, washed out gold..a far cry from the beautiful blues and greens that a live crab would have.  I pondered again.  Michael looked at the crab and said something about the crab "looks like a gold bug".  Aha!  What an idea! If you cannot recreate the original..go for the obvious! My crab took a hike outside and received a coat of gold paint!  It looked a whole lot better painted gold.

 I have to admit that this crab would never receive any accolades as a piece of art but still, if I want to display it, gold is better than "blech"!  Also, it is most definitely NOT worth its weight in gold.  It is probably not even worth a plug nickel to anyone except me.  After all this work, I had better like it!  The "Golden Crab" will hang in the entryway with all of the other neat finds from the Bayou!