A Flea Market Out Front, Drama Out Back! Welcome to February!

Listen to this article

February began with concerns around household income, everyone asking God to intervene in our finances, when a flea market in Rutland jumped off the screen at me. Ashley said sure, we could try, so I contacted the guy. We missed the first week of February, but got in yesterday.

Initially, we were greeted with wary eyes from various vendors as we rolled in our trunks. Once setup was done however, for the first hour at least, there was a steady stream of 55+ to elderly guys with their walkers, going past our booth to check us out! Most were quite impressed with our setup and some wanted to chat about the restoration project we engaged in for the apothecary trunk.

Once visitors starting coming by, a fellow prayer partner showed up and bought a bag of tea, handed me extra in change, and told me to give cups away to others around the room to help spread the word! We gave away 4 cups of tea and one of those recipients kept returning! He is a forager himself, so we talked shop at times, and he bought a tea for himself as well. We got to chat with a foraging workshop alumni who stopped by our table as well. She wasn’t expecting to see us, so it was fun to catch up.

Other vendors came by to purchase cups of tea. A vendor we’ve been at other fairs with, saw me and got all excited we were there, saying we’d love it! Another vendor said to keep coming and sales would increase and once the market moves outside, the sales would quadruple, at least in her experience. It’s quite safe to say that we were welcomed with open arms by the vendors at this fair and many were saying things like “we’ll see you next week, right? You’ll be here next week?” Even the organizer was saying stuff like this. Ashley’s decided that yes, we will return, so now I need to confirm that with the organizer.

In background news that could have curtailed us being there, our furnace quit in the middle of the night Saturday evening! I woke up with the house cooling down around 1:23am. The furnace didn’t turn on, so I got up closer to 2am, and discovered the furnace would try to start if I turned the knob off then on, but then it would quit. We pulled out our space heaters, which they don’t like us using in our gated community, set them to medium to try to keep electricity draw low, and while I attempted to go back to sleep, by the time we had the heaters set up it was close to 4am, so the others apparently returned to their rooms and started researching the problem. Ashley and I got up at 6am to get ready to be at the market for 7am setup time, and we left my son with instructions to find help for the furnace. No one was working on Sunday, but a neighbour gave us a better space heater to use, and that kept things between 18 and 20 C till the mobile mechanic could arrive today. We were out shopping Monday morning while my son handled the repair visit. As I was typing this paragraph, Ashley popped in the door, and another neighbour just gave us a $300 gift toward the repair!!!

Before this stuff happened, we’d gone to the barn on Friday, only to find out Bella had been SO concerned about coyotes going through the property, that she’d been put off her food AND her water!!! Ashley decided to grab the halter, and we walked Bella around the perimeter of the property, with me making a point to check the fences because we had to repair them in a few places last year. The property owner is in his 80’s with two bad knees and often forgets to send his workers around, so we did it last year with twine, trees and boards. The fence line was fine, but near the manure pile, I heard a bark in the distance and barked back, which alerted Ashley and Bella, and we all marched off in the direction of the bark. They must have heard us coming and left, because the next bark I heard was beyond a pond in another property. Half way along the largest fence line, Bella began to calm down enough to start nibbling at grass through the snow. We let her nibble awhile, but as light levels began to fade we took her back to her paddock to finish our barn chores. We ensured her water was fresh, made sure she ate some of her cubes, picked her hooves and had to go.

Thankfully, by Sunday evening when we returned to do chores, she had been eating again. We may have to do more perimeter walks, we’ll see.

Just a heads up that we have passed the deadline for registrations to come in for the Pine Vinegar advanced foraging workshop on February 22nd. Any registrations before the 15th will only receive a 50% refund now if a person has to cancel attendance, and if no registrations are in by the 15th period, the 22nd will be cancelled. If you’d like to attend the pine vinegar workshop, please get your registration in by either e-transfer, or filling out the form and payment via this link here.

The next advanced foraging workshop begins March 22nd and ends March 24th, all around making your own household wild herbal trail kit. There will be no actual foraging for this workshop as we will be providing the wild herbs in their dried form. Get your registrations in before the deadline so I can have your containers and non-foraged ingredients on hand for when you arrive.

Bella's Aromatics, by Ashtree Wildcrafting — Bella’s Aromatics, by Ashtree Wildcrafting

I have notified the flea market organizer that we intend to return for this coming Sunday. For those who only pay cash, that is your last available date to register in person for the Pine Vinegar workshop on the 22nd.

If that many situations occurred behind the scenes to potentially throw us off going to the flea market, we’ll be there in spades!!!

A new addition was added to our table at the flea market! Ashley’s aromatic oil escapades have resulted in several scents she might bring to market as oil perfumes! She’s put together a sample chest with a legend, in the hopes of obtaining feedback from table visitors on the scent blends they do or don’t like. We were able to gather three scent feedback opinions, and they turned out to all be from the same family. But it’s still valuable info regardless as not everyone in the same household likes the same things. If you enjoy perfumes of various types, we’d welcome you stopping by our table in the weeks ahead, and letting us know what you think.

Sharing is caring:

Leave a Reply Cancel reply