Holiday Weekend

Well...the flea market was a total waste of time. On Friday I sold ONE staff for $35 and nothing else. On Saturday, Mike sold 2 necklaces @ $10 each and 2 $1 refrigerator magnets. That was it. $57 in two days, minus setup fees ($18), minus what I bought ($11), minus what Lisa bought ($2), minus a sausage sandwich and fries ($4), minus what Mike bought ($5), minus the food and drinks we took ($15), we came out $2 ahead. It was 90 degrees and sunny. Some of Lisa's treasure candles melted, I dropped and destroyed Mike's favorite sculpture, two of Lisa's clay figures got broken, she got sick from the heat, and now I have to fill the truck with diesel for what we wasted driving there and back. What a horrible waste of two days. We left an hour early, sick, dissapointed, and disgusted over the whole experience. By the time I fill the truck we'll be as a loss of around $30. That may not sound like much, but we were counting on making a few extra dollars there to help., and it just didn't happen.


Yesterday we did manage to get most of the garden in. I started at 6:30am to try to beat the heat. We had a good pace going. then the neighbor behind me stopped over with his brother-in-law from Florida,(who was raised in my house) and stayed almost an hour. Then the neighbor in the back of the orchard stopped by for about another hour, (though I did manage to swap him 3 of my handmade wands for a garden cart and he gave me a barrel stove). Then as I was digging the last 5x24 bed, friends of ours stopped by since they were out yard saleing in the area and stayed about 2 hours or so. Don't get me wrong, I like having company and people over, but it was one distraction after another. The weather was horribly hot and I took 5 minute breaks about once an hour to drink water and sit in the shade. (I drank my 2 gallon cooler dry twice). I ended up sunburned red from the waist up, hot, sweaty and dirty. Everything is planted but squash, zuchinni, beets, broccoli, and the rest of the herbs.

Today I slept in a bit longer than I wanted but was still up at 6:30. I made coffee and did a few things outside then worked on cleaning up the garage and garden tools from yesterday. I tinkered in the garage a bit and made a wreath from the grapevines with a star in the center, then made two small horseshoe shaped beds behind the chickenhouse and transplanted some spearmint in them. We had a barbeque, but a storm rolled in and it got windy and fanned the flames in the wood cookstove. Some of the corn was burnt and almost half of the steaks ended p ultra-well done. Of course, just as I was ready to take everything off the grill, it started pouring rain and stormed for not quite an hour. I wasn't too upset with the rain since we needed it after just planting yesterday, but it only lasted an hour then got sunny and really hot and humid....typical Ohio. The forecast now says rain the next 4-5 days straight, so I have no idea when I can finish the garden. Hopefully I'll get at least a one day break to finish planting. I could now since the rain stopped, but I'm just plain drained both mentally and physically from the disappoinment at the flea market and from spending 13 hours outside yesterday. Lisa is sitting across the table from me making jewelry and I'm doing laundry at the same time I write this. I think it's gonna be an early night............................................