Saturday June 16 flew by in a  frenzy of activity while Sunday went by in a haze of exhaustion as we slowly worked our way through our breakdown process. This involved emptying out the car, the Transit and trailer.  Then taking a much needed break.  Setting all the coolers we used upside down on driveway so they dried.  Again a break to catch my breath.  Our clothes and all the dishes we used had to be washed. Then get it all packed away again.  I just love this time of year.  Plastic bins, tables and coolers all over my living room.  Remind me again, who’s bright idea was all this?  Oh yeah.  It was Ron’s.

Prep for this event started two weeks ago with deciding how many logs needed to be soaked.  Ron wanted to have more shiitakes on hand than last year.  We actually ran out over an hour before the event ended.  Disappointed customers are not a good thing.   The weather played havoc with Ron’s nerves as we were not seeing solid signs of life on the first sets of logs we soaked.  So he upped the ante.  And when there was a threat of rain, we scrambled to get the just formed mushrooms covered.  Not much is worse than a soggy shiitake.  And then Mother Nature decided to cooperate.  We picked, cleaned and bagged shiitakes every night last week.   In the end we were not sure how we were going to get them all out the CCE on Saturday.

I was also making last-minute batches of my skin care products.  I planned to make the cream as late as possible as it is a bit more perishable than the other products.  Ron again used his “majored in shop” skills to set me up with just what I needed for filling the jars.  Being cream it does not always pour neatly into each jar.  I needed a way to fill the jars without making a mess.

Of course, it was my idea, he just made it happen.  I had a piece of Styrofoam laying about the house and decided that would be perfect.  Ron cut out 8 pieces and used his two inch hole cutter on each one and I have a much needed solution.  And I needed to finish my vendor apron.  Nothing like waiting until the last-minute to get things done.  But it looks great and should do the job for me.  It was also the one thing I had to run back into the house for.   I left it sitting on the wrong bin.

Friday afternoon Ron, Jo and I headed over at 2 pm to the CCE to pre-set up.  We took the tent, stove, tables, logs and propane tanks.  Ron made the afternoon just that more aggravating by remembering that he had a 3:30 pm hair cut scheduled and he wanted to stop and get pizza for dinner.  So we were on an even tighter schedule.  Remember, we still had mushrooms to pick and clean that night. This is a process that can take hours, depending on how many we pick.  And I had another batch of cream to make.  The one I made earlier was a disaster.  I still don’t know what I did wrong.  Getting our site set up was a bit nerve wracking as the wind was quite strong.  We would not have been able to leave the tent set up without having the heavy duty weights.  But we did lower the tent itself to reduce the potential impact of the wind.   Jo and headed for home and Ron off to Rome for his hair cut and then pizza pick up.  I got a text 30 minutes later from him.  His appointment is next week.  When will that man learn to use his phone for appointments?

Early wake up call on Saturday.  Well, early for most people.  4 am is normal get up time for us most days.   We jumped right into to repacking all the mushrooms.  To make it easier on us, we decided to set them all up in quart bags.  That way we could just grab a bag from the cooler instead of doing it for each purchase.  Then showers, breakfast and final loading of trailer and vehicles.

We had absolutely fabulous weather on Saturday. Lots of sunshine and a slight breeze that seemed to come just when needed.  We asked for, and got the same location as last year, number 51.   We pulled in and unloaded everything so the Transit and trailer could be moved into vendor parking.  Jesse arrived and we got everything set up and organized.

I was on the left side of the tent with Jesse and the inoculated logs were on the right.  I was  selling my products and our plants.  We had two trays of lavender and one of calendula.  I wanted to make sure people got to see what this flower looked like.  We did pretty well on selling them too. In fact before we even got started a lady stopped by and wanted to buy all 16 of our lavender plants.  Ron hemmed and  hawed but then had to say no.  We would lose not only our pop of color on my table but one of our draws.  Some might say we lost out on a sure sale, but we ended up selling most of the plants.  Again I was the money lady.   This does cause me a little stress.  I have to count out the change a couple of times to make sure I get it right.  Jo was again in charge of completing the shiitake samples.  And that was our first crisis.  Ron had stashed the mushrooms that he was going to use for samples in a separate cooler but we could not find it.  Somehow we had left it home.   Jo took my keys and headed to get it.  We still had over an hour before opening so she had time to save us.  I went back to working on my setup and was looking for a place to store my stuff.  I shoved one of my bins under the table only to hit something.   Guess what I found?  Jo, in being helpful had shoved the cooler under the table to get it out-of-the-way.  I hadn’t looked before as it was my side and I didn’t expect a cooler to be there.  I grabbed my phone and called her to come back.  Luckily she had not gotten far.  Only downside was that she now had to park the car along the road and not back in the lot.   My fabulous friend, Josi Williams arrived to help out.   We put her in charge of handing out the samples and selling the mushrooms.

We were all set up and ready to go when we heard they were letting people in early.  Now it was a scramble for Ron to get the samples going.  And that was the last free minute we had for the next 5 1/2 hours.  While it did take us a bit to find our rhythm, once we did you would have thought we had been working together at this for years.

Ron’s brother Don arriving was an unexpected bonus.  His son, Jesse had taken on his previous task of selling the logs.  He has strong knowledge of our process as he has been to just about every inoculation we had held.  And he does like to talk to people.  Not as much as Ron, but the Delaney genes do run true.

That bright sunshine was great for bringing out customers but it played hell with my products.  We clearly have to do something about getting some shade.  My display was ruined as I had to stash everything under the table.  The sample jar of cream which melted went into the cooler so it would thicken again.   But you know, everyone who tried the cream thought it was great and it was my best seller.  I do have to work on my sales pitch.  I will never be, and don’t really want to be the carnival barker that Ron is, but I can and will get better at the sales game.   Another reason we need shade is for my cash box.  It is black metal and got really hot.  I needed pot holders (not on hand) every time I had to get in there for a few more ones.   And I need to make a new apron.  The pattern I used is a good one, but I want the pockets to be just a bit deeper.  I started out with 5 small pockets along the lower band but I ripped out the stitches so I had two large pockets and one for a pen.  That worked for me.  I now have a few weeks to sew myself one that suits me better.

All in all it was another great though exhausting day for THF.  We were sold out of shiitakes just before 1 pm.   And while Ron did apologize to everyone who came back looking to buy some, he made a point of telling all of them they shouldn’t have waited.  And I didn’t even want to yell at Ron until it was all over.  We had broken our site down and I had pulled my car back in to the lot to start loading. Then I sent Ron out to get the Transit and trailer.  And what does he do; stops to chat with the lady two stalls down from us.  Fifteen minutes later, he is still taking with her.   Josi suggested we all head home and leave Ron to load everything up by himself.  Finally I had to call him on it and get him moving.  He arrived back just in time to get boxed in behind a lady driving her big van who stopped in the middle of the road to start loading up her tent.  It wasn’t until I went over to point it out that she bothered to look behind her to see the 4 or 5 people trying to get by. It took some assistance from Jesse to guide her out of the way enough for Ron to get by and then he had to guide the others by him.  What a mess that was.  If only he had come right back with the wagon when I sent him for it.  Then he could have missed all the aggravation.

We loaded everything and tied down the covering tarp with straps,  Hugs all around and it was finally time to head home.  Jo and Ron went first with me following.  And a good thing that was.  We were about half way home on a country road when I noticed one of our bins was getting ready to fall off.  I hit my horn and flashed my lights but nothing.  Neither one of them noticed.  The bin went flying into the ditch and still they did not hear the horn or see the lights.  I pulled over to pick everything up.  Jo’s kettlecorn was the only causality.  The bag it was in was ripped up pretty good.  I ended up with popcorn all over my front seat.   Ron is so lucky that the bin didn’t break.  They did finally notice that I was not right behind them and called me.  Of course my phone was in the trunk so I couldn’t answer them.  When I got home, I was happy to yell at both of them for not paying attention.   We just pulled the important things out of the car and headed inside.  Alcoholic drinks and left over pizza after our showers.  So tired.  And sunburned.  Ron and Jo were safe under the tent, but Josi and I left with the back of our legs scorched   We had gotten sunscreen for our arms and face from the wonderful first aid folks, but had not thought about the legs.

Once again we had great time and were pleased with end result.  We took fewer logs with us (sold out of those), more shiitakes (sold out of those) and my natural skin care products.  Which I had respectable sales in.  We just need to change a few things, figure out how to create shade on one side of our tent and remember to bring sunscreen.

Remember to come to and see us at the Little Falls Cheese Festival on July 14.  You can check to see if we got our needed improvements worked into our process.