Our second vendor event is now in the books and the experience has only served to cement our 2018 plans to be there again. But it was a long and tiring day with all four of us on our feet the entire time. Before we even left the house, Jo saved the day.  We had preloaded what we could the night before and finished up with the perishables at o’dark 30.  Last look around and we were ready to go when Jo asked about our display log.  It was still sitting in the garage.  Ron had hammered nails in each end and came up with a rig to hang it from a bar in the Transit.  All his plans would have been for naught except for Jo.

Being Ron, his plan was to arrive on site at least 30 minutes before the official 7 am start time for vendors.  That worked out great as they let us get started right away. We were done before a good chunk of the other vendors even arrived. And that gave me the time to correct a goof. I hadn’t forgotten our seed money again, just the SD card from my camera. I have a bad habit of forgetting to pull it from my laptop once the download is complete. But a quick trip to a local store and that was taken care of.

THF had been given a great spot, on the end of one row and in direct line from gate number one.  That meant we could be one of the first booths people saw as they walked in.  This was one highly organized event.  Not only did they have coffee and donuts for the vendors, but there was a special bathroom, a real one, just for the vendors.  We were all set and ready to go when we had to scramble to deal with a major shift in our layout.

We originally had our garlic set up on a side table.  See the blue bottles we are using to hold our signs?  They are part of my Mom’s blue glass collection.   I do so love being able to reuse something that has strong memories in this way.  We had to do some fast reshuffling once other vendors got set up.  There was just no space for anyone to walk between the two booths.

This is what we ended up with and Ron liked it so much that he decided we would do the same at our next event.  We will need matching table covers, of course.  He really likes the green tablecloth on the right that we bought 18 years ago.  Now he has the task of seeing if he can find another one or two others that are close enough to replace this one.  That will keep him busy and hopefully out of trouble for a bit.  I need to do something about our little trash can.  That plastic bag does nothing for the look we are going for.

Ron was in charge of the stove work, while Jo set up the actual sample.  I was the go between, getting extra supplies for them, talking with customers and making the actual sales.  And offering our samples.   Made for a hectic day with lots of dashing from one side of the tent to another.  Shifting the side table to the front really helped me.  I suddenly had much more space to work with.  But  I really needed to have a clone or two.  One to handle just the samples, another to give the sales pitch and a third to be on hand to help Ron and Jo.  We did have brother in law Don on hand again.  He was strictly sales, working his spiel on our “grow your own shiitakes” logs.  Based on the success we had in June, we brought more logs with us this time.  While we didn’t sell all of them,  more than a few people left carrying one of our bow tie festooned logs.

 

Glass of wine for me and beer for Ron and Jo.  Leftover pizza and some aspirin for all and we headed to bed.  Planned to sleep till noon.  Of course I was awake at 330 am.  Ron followed shortly after that and we slowly got into the day.  Just after 6 am we headed our to our favorite diner in Sherrill for breakfast.  My goal for the rest of the day is to get everything cleaned up, packed up and out of my living room.

We did have to make a trip out to THF.  There were shiitakes to check on and elderberries to pick.

Timing really is every thing.  We came home with 14 pounds of good looking mushrooms.  We really could have used them yesterday.    It is stressful dealing with Mother Nature.  She doesn’t always play fair.  Stuffed mushrooms sewn by two of us.  Jo’s idea really does sound better and better.