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.

But it takes a lot of work.  The Mohawk Valley Garlic Festival is this Saturday and we are in crunch mode getting ready for it. This involves pulling our tent, tables and assorted other supplies out of the storage shed and dumping them back in our living room.  Talk about an obstacle  course.   We have bins for the smaller stuff; the cooking supplies, table covers,  display pieces, and all the other odds and ends we will need.  Then we have the coolers and wood rack for our logs.   My leg muscles are getting a good work out with all the stretching I am doing, making sure I clear each bin as I make my way around the room.
We have finally cleaned all the garlic we plan to bring. Now comes the final sort and Ron tackling his new project. He bought some nifty bags that he is going to fill with heads of garlic and offer them for sale.   And a few more boxes are added to the pile.

This was my project.  We are taking 21 logs with us this time and I had to make bows for each of them.  I did it over a couple days, getting each step done for them all before moving on.  Tuesday night just after 10 pm I was done.  Had gotten started with the final gluing and was simply going to get them all done that night.  This time we were sure to add the length of wire before I glued the middle piece on.    One lesson learned from the CCE Herb and Flower Festival.   Hot glue and I don’t really get along.  I woke the next morning with more than a few scorched fingers.

Last weekend we took the time to do a practice run for our shitake sample procedure.  Jo was going to be in charge of filling the little boats, adding the pesto and the dot of sriracha.  Another lesson,  we need to have a way to keep the boats from flying away in a breeze.  Which is why we have the plate sitting inside a plastic bin.

Ron will be manning the stove and I will be the one handing out the samples, encouraging people to try and then buy our shiitakes.

It was windy as we practiced and that reminded Ron that we needed a proper napkin holder, one with an arm to hold the stack down.  One of his potholders caught fire so we need to replace that too.  And we need the right sized plastic spoons for Jo to use.  Once again we determined that using the pastry bag for the pesto was just not going to work.

On top of all this, the mushrooms still have to be grown.  Which means trips out to THF for lots of soaking and hauling and worrying over our logs.  The weather is not being helpful with the cooler temps and rain.   This is the first year we are actively working to grow shiitakes this late in the year.  It has been slightly stressful as we really don’t know what to expect.  It would be so much easier on our nerves if we were selling a non perishable product.   Maybe Jo has the right idea when she talks about making plush mushrooms.

Ron and I both arranged to take Friday off, giving us more time to get ready for Saturday.  I had a few extra days off to schedule and decided to take today too.  That was a good decision.  Jo and I headed out first thing this morning to dust one set of logs with diatomaceous earth in our continuous battle with the blood thirsty slugs.  Or are they shiitake hungry?   So wet out on THF and the  mud made it difficult to get around.  The mushrooms looked pretty good though.  Then home to get assorted errands done.  I managed to find the right spoons for the pesto which made my day very happy.   I got some more organizing done but somehow managed to lose our master list.  Cannot find it anywhere.

Ron got home and we got ready to go pick mushrooms.  Rainy weather caused a delay but we finally started out.  We got out to the logs just in time for a pouring rain storm.  Had to make mad dash for our tent to get out of it.  Soaking wet by that time and chilled to the bone.  Wet mushrooms are not good at all, so there would be no picking until the rain stopped.

The rain died off and we raced out to get the shiitakes picked and our “pretties” pulled out of the soaking tanks and loaded into the wagon.  Raced might be a bit of a stretch.  The mud really makes it hard to move around.

Some pretty shiitakes. So hoping they sell well on Saturday. And hoping we see a few familiar faces at the Mohawk Valley Garlic Festival in Little Falls, NY.

It was a one day event last Saturday, but the plan was months in the works.  There was so much involved that I was not able to to get any of our prep work saga down on paper.  Every time I sat down to write, Ron called with some other project we needed to get down right now.  This was a major learning experience.  We had signed up to attend the fest, but Ron had upped the ante by deciding that not only were we going to sell our shiitake mushrooms and mushroom bolts, but would offer sauteed shiitakes samples too.  This decision resulted in a lot more purchases; a hot water dispenser for hand washing, food service gloves, extra insurance, a cooking stove, pans, utensils, the list got longer every day.  And he had to run his plan by the Oneida County health department to get their OK. That involved phone calls, emails and more insurance.   Once he got that, the pressure was on.  Then he added to it by deciding we were also going to register for the Little Fall Garlic Festival in September and again offer samples.

It is not cheap, being a vendor at any event.  The list of things you have buy is long, even when you are not planning to offer food samples.  After last Saturday, I am even more convinced that a tent of some sort is a necessity.  There were a few vendors out at the Herb and Flower Fest that didn’t have one and I don’t see how they survived.  It was hot that day and the shade was most welcome.

We already found out that it works great in the rain.  We set the tent up on our back deck, trying it out for size and were able to work through it.  Just picked shiitakes wait for nothing when they need to be cleaned and sorted.  The week before the event brought an unwelcome realization.  We had already purchased a small frig to use as storage, but it is clear that it will not be big enough.

In order to fulfill Ron’s vision I had to come up with a burlap skirt for each of our three display tables and another table cover to give it color and pop.  My goal was to make something would be easily reusable.   And I have to say that I succeeded.  The burlap skirts I came up with can be folded up (well sort of) and stored for use.  Then pulled out and tossed over each of our 3 tables.  One side table was for the plants we would have for sale.   This needs a bit more effort and thought.  I am looking into growing unusual types of herbs.  More research needed.  The other would have our display shiitake bolt.  The table in front would be for  our signage, mushroom is quart and two quart sizes and samples.  This had to be the show stopper.   He spent a lot of time thinking about how he wanted things to look.  He got just what he wanted from Greg Potter, who has serious skills and is definitely capable of thinking outside the box.

The CCE allowed vendors to come in the afternoon before to start set up. That was a major help as Jo and Ron got the heavy lifting done.   Due to the windy conditions, we did not fully deploy the tent and Ron got the extra strapping out.  Before I got there, they had already seen another tent go flying.

The list of things we learned is a good long one.  I certainly learned that I need to be sure we have everything with us.  If we had been at an event that was further away, leaving behind our seed money could have been a real disaster.  More practice is needed for the shiitake sample process.  Ron wants to get Jo involved which would leave me free to handle our customers.   And we need to do something about a better money box.  Using an old cigar box, while it might bring back memories of your lemonade stand, it wasn’t very secure.  One misstep and it could have ended up on the ground with our cash flying all over the place.

The set up in the tent has to be tweaked to allow better movement and flow.  More of our mushroom bags needed to be prepped with our stamp and CNG sticker, our business cards too.  Ron needs a to have a straw.  He spent the entire time fully gloved for sample cooking and could not hold his water bottle.  Those of you in the know fully understand why he did not want to change gloves.  They are hard enough to get on it good conditions.  When your hands are damp, forget it.  And we learned that having boiling hot water in our hand washer container was not a good thing.   It kept the water too hot to use all day long. Neither one of us thought about adding one of our jugs of water to it.  I was able to get my tea all day though.  So not a totally bad thing.

The three things we really need to bring next time is more logs, more shiitakes and something for more shade.  And we need practice.  Lots and lots of practice.

Knowing Ron, he has plans.  So look for Tiny House Farm Augusta NY to be at more events.  Just not this year, expect for The Mohawk Valley Garlic & Herb Festival in September.

held on June 17, 2017 was our first vendor event, and we were quite nervous. The Cornell Cooperative Extension holds this event every year and it is always well attended.  We had been to numerous craft shows, garlic fests and other festivals over the years but had never dreamed we would be one of those hopeful few stationed in their tent, waiting for customers.

Our day started early as Ron planned for us to arrive on site at 6 am.  Didn’t quite make that goal.  It look us longer than expected to load everything into the trailer and then head out.  We had to stop along the way to get more ice.  Our mushrooms had to be kept cool during the day and the more ice, the better.

They had allowed set up the day before and Ron and Jo had taken advantage by getting the tables and tent setup.  We were among the first to arrive on Saturday, but could see that most tents were already set up.  Unloading came first, the best fun.  I had bought lots of plastic bins to sort and organize different groupings.  The table covers and displays, cooking, our THF shirts, sample serving stuff, our paperwork, and of course, Ron’s favorite – shit happens bin.   That had duck tape, scissors, note cards, clips, and anything else we could think of that just might have been needed.

We got the tent sides up and set up the tables and started organizing everything.  Right away we could see that it was to be tight working conditions.    No more than two people could really be in the tent at one time.  This was going to be an issue later on.

Our hopefully eye catching front table ready to go.   Mushrooms will be sold in one or two quart amounts.  We are so not ready to get involved in selling by weight.  That involves a special and expensive scale and lots of paperwork.  My head hurts just thinking about it.

On the right of the tent, I had lavender, ginseng and calendula for sale.  This was a side effort but one that made sure we fit into the “herb and flower” part of the event.  Our first attempt at growing plants for sale.  Time will tell how well they do.

Once we were fully set up, I started the final steps of getting my bows onto the logs.  Hot glue is not the easiest thing to shove a piece of wire through.  I ended up asking Ron for help.  As he got to sit down again, he was in his element.   I wish I had remembered to bring a large needle, but then thought of using one of our large skewers.  That worked a treat and Ron had the bows ready to go in short order.

Everything was ready and we all took a deep breath.  Off to take advantage of the coffee, juice and donuts for the vendors and change into our Tiny House Farm T shirts.  Then disaster.

I could not find our jar of cash.  The quarters and one dollar bills I had set aside to bring as our seed money.  After searching all the bins in and around our site, I grabbed the car keys and headed  home.  Just over a 20 minute dash each way and I was back with cash and we were ready to go.   Already people  were at our tent and Ron was giving them his spiel.  I just needed to get him to stop talking and start cooking the mushrooms.

Once he finally got going, we hit our second stumble.  The plan was to use garlic scape pesto in a pastry bag and pipe out a small amount on top of the shiitakes.  The pesto was too chunky for our pasty tip.  I had to scramble to get the tip off and use one of our toothpicks to get some pesto on each serving.  Then a dash of Sirarcha sauce on top.  We served this in bamboo leaf boats.  And they almost overshadowed the shiitakes.  Everyone loved those things.   Foolishly I never got a shot of our plate of samples.  Too much going on.  A few hours in and I had given up on the pesto.  We just offered plain shiitakes.  They were hit enough.

Brother in law Don was a surprise part of our work crew.  He arrived about an hour after start time. Next year, I have to remind him to tell the CCE staff that he is a member of our team so he gets in free.   Don is always a delight to have around and he knows as much about our shiitake process as Ron does.  A good salesman to have on our side.

Ron sliced mushrooms, hit the frying pan with olive oil and then butter and kept sautéing and talking.  The man never shut up, but everyone just ate it up.  He was obviously born to this role.  I offered the samples and gave my lower key version of our sales pitch.  Our mushroom bolts quickly had sold tags on them.   Annoyed at myself for not getting the perfect shot of a row of sold logs sitting just outside our tent.    Just too busy dealing with our customers.

Jo and Don were out of the tent most of the day and they both paid the price.  Two things on our list for next year – sunscreen and something to give us more shade.  Jo chatted with the ladies next door but kept an eye on me.  She made change and handed me bags as I headed for the mushrooms in our coolers.  We sold mostly quart size bags.   So we are thinking about ways to organize them better for next year.  And we are certainly planning to be a repeat vendor.

By 1:30 pm we were totally sold out of both bolts and mushrooms.  We even had a list of people Ron was going to contact about getting bolts the following weekend.  We spent the next two hours talking with people who would have bought mushrooms, if only we had them.  Ron was so in his element.  There is quite a bit of a teacher in him.

Exhausted is the only word for how we felt at 3:30 pm.  Both mentally and physically.  I take my hat off to anyone who does a weekend event.

I have to give a serious  shout out to Greg Potter.  He created the rack for holding our mushroom bolts, the display stand for our shiitakes and the stand for Ron’s display bolt.  They were simple and elegant and more than did the job for us. Check out Greg Potter’s Woodcraft for other examples of the amazing work Greg does.

It was an amazing experience.  One that we are already looking forward to in 2018.  We did not have high expectations for this event, after all it was out first and we were selling what some who call an unusual product.  As Jo says, we were gobsmacked at just how well we did do.  Ron might have actually had a good idea, after all.  Just don’t tell him I said so.

Ron is totally into the firsts. So when we started planning our annual trip to the MEN Fair in September, he was delighted to find out that Vermont was going to have their first event this year. We do love trips to Vermont so we were in. Luckily we have the days to take off from work and no conflict with THF plans.

The only issue we ran into was the start time on Saturday morning.  Being old fogies, there was no way we could get up early enough in Sherrill to make the trip to Burlington are arrive by 9:30 am and be in any shape for the upcoming day.  About a 5 hour drive, factoring in stops we would have to be up and out the door before 4 am.   That is our normal wake up time.  So we decided to splurge and take Friday off as travel day and spend the night in local hotel.

This gave me the chance to insist on a stop at Vermont Country Store and Ron decided to throw in visits to a couple of places that make tiny houses.  Even though we do have an actual “tiny house” out on the farm, it is not the one Ron had planned on.  He wants a real house, one that HE can stay in.  After some research on the internet he found a company that looked interesting.  A few emails later and he had an invitation to visit.  They also recommended another place just down the road from then.

Friday we left the house at 6 am, which was late for one of our traveling days.  Rainy morning but not too much traffic on the NYS Thruway.  Stopped for our usual quick  road trip breakfast at McDonalds and hit our first bump in the road.  We lost about 45 minutes waiting there.  Annoying but this was not our usual trip and we had no hard schedule to follow.

I do like driving with a GPS and it brought us right to the address for Tiny House Crafters in Londonderry, VT.  It is a good thing that Kate advised Ron that they have a small space and not to be put off by their lack of big work buildings.  We could tell it was the right place by the two tiny houses in the front yard.   Anderson and Bob were busy working on their current project but they were happy to stop and spend some time talking with us.  Kate joined us and Ron jumped right in with his list of questions.  They were a terrific group of people and I could see that they were delighted that Ron was asking “real” questions and already had some knowledge.   Anderson went back to work and Kate and Bob gave us a tour of the house they are working on for a traveling musician.  It was amazing.  Annoyed at myself as we were 10 minutes down the road before I realized I had not taken an photos.   But you can see the quality of the work they do by checking out their website.

Then we headed to Jamaica Cottage Shop in South Londonderry about 10 minutes away.  This place was huge.  They specialize in building sheds of all shapes and sizes, but have now stated morphing them into tiny houses.  Shannon was very helpful and sent us on a tour of the two houses they had on site and the number and variety of buildings they had was mind blowing.  We came away with some good ideas for Ron’s future tiny house.

We did stop at the Vermont Country Store and spent about 30 minutes there  Always a fun place to spend some time.  An we took advantage of their picnic tables to eat our lunch.

Then we headed to Burlington and our hotel for the weekend.  Our biggest problem that night was finding a place to eat.  We ended up at the Blue Bird Barbecue just a few miles down the road.  A nice place, with good music, great food and staff.  If we ever are up that way again, we stop there again.

The first workshop at the Mother Earth News Fair did not start until 9:30 am.  So late in the day for us.  Don’t they know they could squeeze a few more speakers or workshops in if they started them at 7 am?

We were one of the first in line on Saturday morning.  Pretty quickly the line grew.  Ron noticed that very few of us were on our phones.  Everyone was talking with the people standing around them.   Where are you from, what brings you here, what do you do and what are you hoping to do, all of these questions made for great conversation.

And how very cool.  MEN posted a photo of people standing in line and there is Ron, in the teal shirt and hat.  I had not bothered to bring my camera thinking I would take any photos with my phone.  But I really didn’t.  Really just too busy going to workshops and talking with people.

Ron was determined to get a shot of me wearing our Tiny House Farm T shirt in front of the best Mother Earth News Fair sign he could find.  We had to wait for the last workshop to finish and the speaker to get packed up.  Then we dodged around the fair staff and got the shot.

On Sunday, we were again among the first in line.  It was hot there, but the breeze kept if from being unbearable.  All of the workshops were held inside which helped with the heat, but not the noise.  The layout made everything just too close.

Ron seems to have a knack for finding former military to talk to.  Everywhere we go, he finds one or two guys who have also served.  There is a connection there, and they have it.

The last workshop ended at 4:30 and as we had already cleared out of the hotel, we pointed the wagon north and headed home.   The plan was to stop along the way for dinner, but the GPS sent us home via NY Route 8.  There was lots of beautiful trees, water and rocks, but the only restaurants we saw were either packed or closed.  So we just kept driving.  Such a relief to pull into our driveway.  We hugged Jo, unloaded everything, grabbed something eat and headed to sleep.

We had a long weekend, but it was great fun and as usual we learned a lot.  I went to sessions on having chickens, making sourdough bread, fermenting veggies, being a homestead medic, preserving veggies, and several on using herbs.  Ron focused more on organic growing, small farms and  the headline speakers.

We have already started saving up for our trip to the Seven Springs Fair in September.

Ron and I took the day off and headed to the Irondequoit Library for The Western NY Garlic School 2017, sponsored by Cornell Cooperative Extension, Monroe County.   We stopped at Mother’s Cupboard in Syracuse for breakfast.  Highly recommend that you stop there for a fabulous breakfast.

Then we stopped at Paratore Signs.  We met with Paige who Ron has known since his graphic designer days.  I nagged him into have T shirts made for Tiny  House Farm.  She wanted us to double check the color she ordered.  It was exactly right and she promised the shirts will be ready in a few days.

Let me tell you, I am just about ready to move to Irondequoit just so I can use their library.  It is wonderful.  Great recycling containers, stacks and stacks of books, snazzy catalog stations all over the place, and a maker’s lab.  With a 3 D printer, sewing and embroidery machines that residents can use to make their own creations.

The class started promptly at 1030 and we dove right into talk about eriophyid mites and the damage they can do to our garlic.  They cause brown streaks and spots on the cloves, and don’t show up until after you have harvested it.

The next topic was fusarium of garlic which also causes brown spots.  But also pink or purple discoloration.  This you can spot by the yellowing or browning of the leaves.  Once they are being stored, they start to rot.

White rot is one of the nastiest.  When that hits, the bulbs actually rot, turning black and white.  Yeck.  Once you have it in your field, it will be at least 20 years before you can plant garlic again.

Just when we thought we had heard the worst, they hit us with the allium leaf miner.  A fly that has been in Europe for years but has now, sadly been found in PA.  Just 2 years ago but it has already spread to Orange Co in our state.   Not much is known about these flies and even less about how to stop them.

I won’t gross you out by posting any photos or going into any more detail, but if you really have to see it,  you can google it for yourself.

Wonder how surface to air missiles will work on this stuff?