Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Wool Day tomorrow

I love Wool Day at the Troy Fair, Alperon Park, Troy, PA.  It's held in one huge open barn during the County Fair.  10 vendors, spinning circles, spinning games, spinning and knitting contests and prizes, Fleece to Shawl contest and loads of fun folks to play with all day.

We're always located second-in next to the alpacas.  Nice spot, some breeze yet if it should rain we are far enough under not to worry.  Although the Jersey cows do want to sample the fibers so we have to keep the stuff at least 3 feet from where they are tied.

This year we decided to try getting everything into one car.  I thought Jim's van would be bigger and easier but he wants to take my SUV because my AC works better. However I secretly believe he didn't want to clean his van to my standards before I would ride in it.  We don't need a full set up as this is a small fair and only one day but it took me hours to decide what to bring and what to leave behind.

Finally I chose 4 fibers - bfl/silk, Falkland, Woody and bbfl.  Low to high end and mostly the fibers that sell the best year round which leaves Polwarth, ams and Panda keeping each other company in the shop.  Now we can set up only one of the two walls of fiber plus take fewer back-up bins and half the shelves.  We'll have our new Dreamz fixed circs and whatever is still left of the Bryspun circular needles.  Plus yarn and patterns and Jim's stools and his spindles and his new Hilltopper Wheel.
Alas the wpi cards did not arrive today so we only have one to sell.  Oh well, so it goes.

We figured out the 3 dimensional puzzle (well Jim does most of that ) of where each item, bin, box, basket goes

and started in on the rear carrier.  Then I realized that it would be very loaded, huge to me, with 3 tables, the triangle yarn stand, 4 shelves, 2 chairs and the rugs that I would feel uncomfortable driving into town later to do an errand. I bet Jim that it would be at least 24" tall and heavy and wide. He says not.  To jerk my chain he sat on the carrier thingie while he took the triangle apart.  He says it's rated for over 500 pounds so what am I worried about?  I say it doesn't look like it'll hold that much on just a 4 by 4 tube of metal.

Jim needed to leave by 3:30 for his errands and a meeting and it was almost 3.  So we decided to get up an extra 30 minutes early tomorrow and load the carrier at 5:30am.  Yup, you read that correctly.  We need to be at the Fair by 7:30am for our unloading slot in the barn. With a stop at Dunkin Donuts in Elmira it takes us about 1.5 hours to get there, so now I'll be rising at 4am.  Good thing Jim is driving.

Not 10 minutes after we moved all the carrier items back into the shop it rained.  Yes, actual rain.  Enough rain to get through the leaves and onto the plants below them.  Not a huge amount but enough for them to perk back up.
And good thing we moved all the stuff back into the shop, just in case.
Wet tables and chairs in the sawdust tomorrow?  NOT


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