Old geocentric theories, and new life

While Jesse and I were in his Living History Renaissance class, learning about geocentric world views before the discovery of the telescope, new life was being discovered by farmer Gillen. Only two turkey eggs had survived and today, two poults emerged while he was there working. But first, let's go back to life before the telescope. When Renaissance-man could only make sense of the universe with the naked eye, he saw the planets and sun as revolving around "the Earth", with Mercury doing a strange back step as it circled. Sure they were wrong, but how amazing is it that they were able to see planets with the naked eye?The girl above in blue with the blue balloon was representing the Earth, stock still in the middle of the moving planets. Jesse was Saturn. His friend Royce was Mercury and got to do the retrograde shuffle (one step back for every two forward). The little girl eating the white balloon as she stands next to Earth girl, is the moon. And below, a representation of what happens when a comet enters the scene. Joyful chaos of course.
But my favorite fact in class today was learning that the guy who invented the flushing toilet was named "Crapper". The links I found about him say that he did not in fact invent the toilet but was a plumber and aided and abetted in the process. Still fun to know. Jesse and I had seen an outhouse yesterday while looking at an old house for sale with a friend. So we had been appreciating the flushing toilet for the past many hours.

One of the sweet new poults:
His/her wary parents: