www.FiberArtFest.com

The June festival is over.  It was a huge success!  My day started somewhere around 5 AM.  I am not counting all the work I did on Friday or the fact that I didn’t sleep well at all that night because I was thinking about all the things that still needed to be done before the exhibitors arrived.  Anyway, after I slapped the alarm, the day started off quite well.  I had found my FAAF clothes the night before and put them aside so I wouldn’t have to think about them.  By 6 AM, I was outside starting to feed everyone to get them through the day and getting the truck and trailer hooked up.  At or about 7 AM, Pennie (our most outstanding volunteer) arrived.  I gave her the rundown on what needed to be done and a map of where all the exhibitors were assigned and she was on her way by 7:30.  By 8:00, I was on my way down to Marshall as well with Moose and Buck our two Icelandic rams and Sterling, Zoey and Merle our llamas.  For whatever reason, the llamas were the hardest to get into the trailer.  Here I was all geared up to get the sheep in the trailer.  Shows you how much I know about animal psychology.

I had all the critters in the stall I had setup the day before by 9:00 AM.  I was able to move the truck and trailer out of the way.  However, before I did, I helped one of the exhibitors put their critters in their pen.  However, one of the little lambs darted right out.  The chase was on.  After 15 minutes of pure panic, she was caught and put back into her pen.  Somehow, she caught my barn shirt and tore it along the seem.  I was very happy she caught my shirt and not me.  The rest of the critters went into the pen without incident and the truck and trailer were put far enough away as not to get in the way of anyone.

The band began to play at 1 PM.  The traditional Irish music was great.  You could hear it well throughout the grounds.  The speakers just happened to be pointed directly at our booth.  So, we heard every word from every person of the band all afternoon.  It was very entertaining as they sang to the llamas.

The people were easy to work with.  I had some wonderful conversations with people of all ages and skill level.  This one family from North Carolina just wanted some wool to start their kids on felting projects.  Others were looking for inexpensive fiber to start spinning.  Some others yet were looking for specific items up and down the row of exhibitors.  One family in particular started at our booth about mid-morning and promised she would be back.  Honestly, I had forgotten about them by mid-afternoon when they returned.  They had spent all day talking to every exhibitor about what they were presenting to the public and tried to learn something at every booth.  She had come back to our booth with big bags of projects in her hands and a large grin on her face.  It looked like she had found treasures beyond belief.

The festival ended at 5 PM and mostly everyone started to tare down.  There were quite a few customers milling around.  The band took an extended break until 7 PM.  By 6 PM, just about everyone had cleared out.  We took ourselves and our most awesome volunteer out for a celebratory dinner.

Our feet, legs, arms and voices were all tired.  It was a wonderful day!

Today has been full of errands and setting up the site for the festival tomorrow.  I have all the spaces marked.  I just need to attach the signs.  I put our tents up already to cut down on the amount of setup we’ll have to do tomorrow.  I have the exhibitor’s menu produced and published.  This year, I edited the exhibitor’s application and will hand out 2010 applications at this year’s event.  I thought that might be handy for folks.

I have the batteries for the camera charging.  But, when I get a chance to take some pictures, I will post them.  You will be able to see our issues with space creeping up very soon.  We do have many different ideas and opportunities if we were to grow bigger again next year.

The weather has been flip-flopping back and forth between sunny and possibility of rain.  Well, I can’t control the weather.  As they like to say in the government, we are ‘go’ for launch.  Rain or shine.

We have counted the number of booths to be setup this year.  With only having a few days until Saturday, we will have 25 booths setup.  This includes multiples for fiber producing animals such as our llamas and those who are bring sheep and such.  Last night, I called each exhibitor individually to make sure they knew when to arrive and to answer any last minute questions.  I truly hope nobody thought I was rude calling late into the evening. 

The small display signs have arrived and I need to go pick them up.  These are corrugated plastic and single color.  They are not as nice as our large, heavy steel 4-color sign.  However, they are much more economical and can be easily moved.  Now, of course, I have to figure out where and who is gonig to put them out and about.

Friday will be the day that I go and get all the booth spaces set.  I have a spreadsheet already produced with everyone on it.  All the special requests or accommodations have been accounted for.   I need to find the field paint that we didn’t use last year due to the rain the day before.  I think I have enough stakes if we need them to stake out the corners of the booth spaces.

I looked at the weather forecast for Marshall for this weekend.  Wow!  It appears it will be in the upper 70s with practically no chance of rain at all.  We couldn’t order better weather if we tried.

In regards to our booth, we have the tents, tables and stall panels located.  Now, we need to clean them off and account for all the pieces-parts.  I think we’re pretty much set on which critters will be joining us.

It is hard to believe that the June festival is right around the corner.  Everything is basically on auto pilot now until just before the festival.  The ads are out and the signs have been ordered.  We’ve posted signs in businesses around Marshall.  Our spot on the Michigan Farm & Garden show will air June 6.  We’re even on their website now! 

Here is a list of times:

Lansing and
Mid-Michigan
Fox 47 WSYM
Saturdays at 7:00 a.m.

Kalamazoo and
West Michigan
CBS 3 WWMT
Sundays at 6:00 a.m.

Northeast Michigan
Fox 45
Saturday at 7:30 a.m.

Northwest Michigan
Fox 33
Saturday at 7:30 a.m.

Northwest Michigan
Fox 54
Saturday at 7:30 a.m.

Upper Peninsula
Fox 64 (Pickford)
Saturday at 7:30 a.m.

Upper Peninsula
Fox 61 (Sault Ste. Marie)
Saturday at 7:30 a.m.

We’re going to get a copy of the show and post our segment on the website.  The owner of the show, Jody, has been very gracious in letting us publish it.

Side Track is creating a special menu for all the exhibitors this year like with other years.  It is designed to fit in a small, covered box that a person can easily put away or store when customers arrive but won’t go bad if left unattended for a short period of time.  On top of that he prices the box lunches special to keep the costs to the exhibitors down.  He’s really gone the extra mile for us year-after-year.

In other news, we had two large ram lambs about a week ago.  They’re doing great along with all the rest of the lambs this year.  We have hay being cut and will bale some of it this weekend.  Fencing is going in this week.  Hopefully, it’ll be done by the end of next week.  It’ll be nice to finally pasture the critters out in the field.  Next year, we’ll fence the rest of the pasture.