By Jessica Domel

I love aha moments. You know the kind. When something you’ve heard, maybe a dozen times before, just finally clicks in your brain and everything makes sense.

My nieces had one of those moments over the weekend during the last days of the State Fair of Texas.

My brother and I took the girls to play carnival games and see the attractions on the midway. We stopped by the car show and walked through the home made from a giant log. And, of course, we visited the award-winning steer, lamb, goat and barrow.

As we walked through the Food and Fiber Pavilion, seven-year-old Abby spotted a small cotton gin in the Texas Farm Bureau Planet Agriculture area. I explained how the machine worked and that the end product would eventually go to a mill. Right on cue, she looked at me and said, “Then it makes shirts like mine!”

I’ve never been more proud in my life.

In August, I showed both girls photos from a cotton field in the Valley and explained cotton is used to make all kinds of products.

Two months later, she remembered that lesson.

It may seem like a small thing, but isn’t that how the best life lessons are learned? Even an act as small as sharing a photo and discussing how things work can be fruitful for our next generation.

Although the state fair is over, opportunities like this have no end. So I’ll keep sharing the story of Texas agriculture. What about you?