Thanksgiving Weekend

Here in Canada, the second Monday of October is Thanksgiving.  That's always a big weekend for us, as it marks the end of the summer season for the two farmers markets we attend.  Saturday started out fair, and we had decided that Larry would sell at Abbotsford on Saturday, so that I had more time and energy to get all the flowers and vegetables picked in the limited amount of daylight we have now, for Sunday's market.

I went with him to the market to help set up, and then not long after it started to rain.  And rain it did, hard.  We have two market tents, one set up behind the other.  The front tent is over what we have to sell, and the back tent is over the utility trailer we use to haul everything there, and which also holds all the extra jam.  When it rains, we have stop the rain from running off where the two tents join.  The easiest thing is to grab both little sidewall parts and turn them up and clamp them to form a little gutter that sends the water off to each side.  We had a bit of a puddle forming at one corner of the back tent, near the gutter.  We used a board to push it to the edge where it would gush over the side.  One particular time I got a little enthusiastic, and pushed the water too fast.  Instead of going over the side, it went 90 degrees the other way, and into the gutter. It was too much water too fast for the gutter to hold, so it came shooting out.  Larry just so happened to be bent over looking into the egg cooler at that moment, and ended up with his hair washed.  I've got to give him a lot of credit though, he had the sense to just hold his head down, instead of straightening up with the shock of that cold water hitting him, which would have sent it all pouring down his neck.  Thankfully we had a big towel with us. Thankfully he was still speaking to me afterwards....well it was Thanksgiving after all!

I left about 10, and as I drove west I could see that it was going to clear up, and so figured that if that was the case, I might as well give the dahlias a bit of time to dry off before I cut them, so stopped at a couple of thrift stores on my way home:)

There were lots of dahlias to pick, although it doesn't really look it in the first two pictures. It seemed to take me ages to get them all cut.

About 16 buckets full.  Luna was the only one that hung out with me.

I only take flowers to the Sunday market, as there is a vendor at the Saturday one that only sells bouquets.  I knew flowers would be in high demand on Sunday, since it was Thankgiving, and I had wanted to have lots made up.  Usually I have about 12 bouquets done, and then take the rest of the flowers with me and make up more bouquets at the market.  Sunday morning the alarm didn't go off as planned, when I checked to see that it was set, I must have actually turned it off.  Thankfully though, I woke up only 40 minutes late, at 5:40 instead of 5am.  I got 10 bouquets put together, and we headed off about 7:30.  We quite often have a little mini lineup in front of our booth, as we don't start selling anything until we are all set up.  We learned the hard way that if you start selling things before you are all ready, sometimes you never really get it all done.  So at first I felt really uncomfortable with the little audience out there, but now it doesn't bother me, and sometimes I have a bit of conversation with one or two.  We were all set to go at 8:55.  By 9:05, all 10 bouquets had sold, so for the next couple of hours I put more bouquets together, another 12 or 14 of them.  As I was trimming the stems on the first one, I got a little enthusiastic and cut into my wrist with the pruners at the same time.  Our First Aid box only had mini band aids left, but our neighbour vendors were better equipped.  I wasn't bleeding much yet, but I knew it was coming.  In the end it took 3 bandaids to keep the bleeding under control.  Between making bouquets, and wrapping them up for customers, and helping Larry out a bit, it was a busy morning.  It wasn't a really heavy day for jam sales, but Larry was kept busy with the veggie sales and wrapping jam in newspaper and trying to get the shelves restocked.  I was sure glad when the last flower went into a bouquet, and I only had the mess to clean up.  I meant to take photos of the actual bouquets, but forgot.

After the market we went for lunch with a friend and fellow vendor, and then Larry headed home with the dogs.  I went to the care home where my mum lives.  The plan was that Meredith was going to cook Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday for us all in her new place.  I took my mum out there, a 45 minute drive.  I remember when I used to drive my mum places, and she never stopped talking, and I would be in heavy traffic and I would wish she would just be quiet for a bit so I could concentrate on my driving.  Now it is just the opposite, she really has nothing to say, and I struggle with things to come up with that she can understand, and try to get a bit of conversation going.

Meredith did a wonderful job of the meal.  All homemade...turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce.  Roasted yams and squash and a vegetable medley.  Homemade apple pie for dessert.  I told her that I had taught her well!:)

Meredith has turned into a real thrifter too now that she has her own place.  Notice the unmatched blue and white plates she is collecting, and the dark blue table cloth topped by the white lacy one, they are a few of the things she has found.  Her paternal grandma (deceased) would be happy to see Meredith using her dining room table and chairs.

 David was there too and he took my mum back home, as it was also the direction he had to head.  We came home with a doggy bag that fed us on Monday, and had a relatively relaxing day off.

The markets are still continuing, but there will be less vendors now, and the Abbotsford one has the option for some vendors to move into the basement of the church.  I will go to two or three of those between now and Christmas.  White Rock changes location, we will be outside for a few weeks and then will move inside the hall when the weather gets really miserable.  We will go to every one of those, nine Sundays until the middle of December.

Suzanne asked how the coyotes were doing.  They are still out there, we don't see a lot of them, but we know they are there, the dogs let us know.  Yesterday afternoon one was near the property fence next to the north chickens.  Today the chickens were squawking and dogs were barking, and there were two coyotes in the field just north of the fence when we went out there.  We don't have any bigger fire power than a pellet gun or an airsoft pistol.  We went in and finally managed to find the pellet gun, and then some pellets.  By the time we got back out there, the coyotes were no longer to be seen.  We took a couple of practice shots, hey, I managed to hit the broad side of a round bale at about 250 ft.!  A bit later, I was at the chicken coop and glanced at the field next door, and there was a coyote again.  I ran and got the pellet gun and managed to get three shots off.  The second one sent it running, although I know I didn't hit it.  Oh how I wished at that moment I had a couple of wolf hounds to let loose on it.