Fair Time Again

       The first full week of August.  Time to head for the county fair.  The Shave Ice Boss figures we have been doing this fair for 26 years.  Some things change while some remain the same.

    

    Cleaning up the equipment, including the poor old pickup, remains the same.

    Digging the equipment out of the barn and removing the year’s accumulation of dirt hasn’t changed much.

     Loading it up and heading out—the same.  The biggest change?—everything weighs more this year, the machines, the portable counter, all heavier somehow.

    One change for this year over last was the Boy Scouts decided to use their shed,  which we used the past couple of years, so we are back under our own awning.

  

     The weather didn’t behave like August.  The highest temperature was 85 on Saturday.  Wednesday didn’t get out of the 60’s.  Thursday and Friday were in the 70’s.  Not favorable to selling ice.  We sold a record low 250 pounds of ice, less than half of what we have done in years past.  That record isn’t due entirely to weather.  The fair just doesn’t attract as many people as it used to.

     To add insult to injury, we spent a lot of Wednesday waiting out rain showers.  We listened to some of the folks talking an inch, two inches, four inches of rain.  We drove home through mud puddles that undid all my pickup washing, only to get home to find the usual .2” in our gauge.

     The neighbors were back selling their buffalo one burger or brat at a time.  Saturday wound down and nothing to do but clean up the abandoned battlefield, pack up and head for home.

     Some salve for a not-so-successful week, .4” of rain fell late Saturday night, music to fall asleep to.