Laffing Horse Crafts

We wrapped up and loaded out from Bella Vista on Saturday Evening. We were allowed to stay through Sunday and take our time packing, but the weather had started to look nasty… never did more than get breezy, but we’d had enough of rain. Still, the Bella Vista Arts and Crafts Show was a lot of fun and a huge success for us… it exceeded our expectations!

That night, we spent the night at Cathy’s house. Cathy is an alumnus of in-law high and knew Jeanette’s parents well and was happy to host us and catch up with the news from a 3rd person point of view. She had a beautiful house and a wonderfully welcome hot tub on her deck! Just a little slice of heaven after a long week of travelling and showing and selling.

Cathy with Jeanette.

Cathy, in turn, had a dear friend, JB, living in the same community (and what a community it was… Bella Vista never really appeared… it’s just a huge sprawling community hidden in the trees). JB is blind. But, perhaps in defiance of the blindness she did not keep her house spartan. Instead there were knick knacks and antiques and collectibles everywhere and she knew the location and history of all of them. Wonderful!

One of her antiques was a spinning wheel. She wanted to use it. She wanted to spin. I thought – as I do with all my students – that the drop spindle would be a bit easier to start out with.

I did it! I taught her to spin. I taught a blind lady to spin. I was on top of the world! JB, on the other hand, took it all in stride. She’s one incredible person.

I’m teaching JB to spin.

We camped in Arkansas in either our van or Midas – our newly acquired RV – for about a week. And what a week it was. We got our physical address, a postal address, and a store front and temporary home.

We even managed to set up ’shop’.

For all the good news, there was one piece of bad news ‚Äì we were never able to get the bus we had been promised running or moving in any way. I had to give up and figure it just wasn’t meant to be ours. No tow truck driver in a 100 mile radius wanted to touch the thing for any amount of money. On the plus side, though, the driver that had agreed to move it and failed was only happy to refund the money we had paid.

Midas is another story. And what a story… Midas is a 1977 Dodge RV with a propane stove, 3.5 KW gas generator, dual fuel refrigerator (electric or propane), full bathroom, kitchen sink, upper bunk and two lower bunks, dinette, and a dual fuel (gas or propane) 360 V8. Midas has 2 ‚Äì 50 gallon propane tanks and a 40 gallon gas tank. Midas needs some TLC, but he ran well enough to get us across the road and into the woods where he sits right now. Once he gets the TLC he needs, Midas will be going on the road as the Common Threads CraftsandRenMobile! Only 77000 original miles and good tires! Talk about the lap of luxury! I’m not even going to tell everyone what we paid for him, but it was little enough that I’m actually somewhat embarrassed and will probably (when I can afford it) pay what my conscience thinks is right instead of what was asked.

Meet Midas

All of this activity took place in a rather steady rain that ranged from drizzle to downpour, but never really let up. The wet was starting to affect our moods and our stock and we had to make a choice… away from our home of the next two months and back to Fayetteville, Arkansas or onwards to our home for the next two months to Hammond, Louisiana. We, with a strong dose of regret and lots of apologies to the folks in Fayetteville, chose Hammond.

The drive from Fox to Hammond was uneventful and pretty, if rainy. We crossed the Mississippi River as we went through Memphis and into Mississippi state (and listening to local radio, discovered that its really pronounced Missippi). We spent the night in Jackson and began refreshed and in full sun the next day.

We arrived in Hammond earlier than we had expected… distances out here are different from differences in Colorado. Hammond appears to be a great little town even if it is really overburdened… they went from a quiet 17000 to a bustling 35000 overnight when Katrina hit ‚Äì and most folk decided to stay on. The nicest thing ‚Äì for us ‚Äì was the stores and their location. There’s a Hobby Lobby across the street from a Wal Mart and a Lowes. With these stores so close to each other there would be no problem getting the stock we needed for our products (except for the wool which Lena is shipping from home). WooHoo!

On to the site. About 12 miles outside of Hammond proper, just beyond the airport and before the high school is a lane that leads back into some very pretty woods. Off to the right, about 3 miles down this road, is a large billboard announcing the Louisiana Renaissance Festival. When we arrived, Alvon was working the office and a bit lost… It turns out that we arrived at the only time there was not a member of the office staff present. Rick arrived shortly, though, and took us on a tour of the grounds. We were offered two locations ‚Äì one was opposite the jousting field and we felt out product just didn’t fit there. The other was across the road from the lake, nestled into the trees. Welcome home, it said.

The lake

We continued our tour by ourselves and let Rick get back to the business of setting up a Renaissance Festival. At first, I was afraid we’d made a huge mistake. The place looked a shambles! On closer inspection though, and with a few days hard work by several hundred merchants and Rennies, the place is looking better. Maybe not such a bad choice. The place still is showing its lack of maturity, but now I can see the potential!

And the deck!

We went to Lowes and spent HOURS trying to talk to people about building our booth. No luck. Lowes, here, is overtaxed (with all the rebuilding going on, it’s really no wonder) and understaffed. Eventually, though, we get what we wanted ‚Äì the Lowes computer system has a deck planner and estimator program that let us build our deck and print out a list of parts and order them for delivery. They even said they could deliver the next day ‚Äì two days at the latest! We were set and we’d have 6 days to build our booth.

We went back to the site and had the backhoe operator take a few minutes to level our site a bit and began plotting things out. And then we sat there waiting for the delivery so we could begin work. And we sat there and we sat there and we sat there and a curious young lady came by and introduced herself as the local hair braider… said she had been waiting two weeks for her lumber to be delivered.

I made a call or two or three hundred and I used some rather magical words with the management. The delivery was only two days late and we were missing about half what we ordered, but it was enough. We now had only 3 days to build a 16 x 24 deck and our booth on it.

Overnight, we became legend! We built the deck! Complete! Solid! Overnight! We’ve since had invitations from about half the people on site… could we please come over for lunch some day and build them a house. We keep telling them we only did it because we were just too stupid to know that it couldn’t be done.

Before

After

The booth (a tent instead of a building ‚Äì that’s the part Lowes didn’t deliver) went on the deck, the stock went into the tent…

Ta Da!

And then the cannon went off and the show began.

We’ve been through opening weekend, the raining days (we guess about 8 inches!), second weekend, Kid’s Days, and third weekend. Now we’re attempting to rebuild all of the stock we’ve sold in the short week between third weekend and Thanksgiving! We sold almost everything small last weekend. So far this show has been coming close to, but not quite meeting, our goals. Still, not too bad for a first year!

For Thanksgiving the festival puts on a pot luck feast! We’re told that the restauranteur has 20 turkeys he’s going to be frying and the pub owner and blacksmith are providing a roast pig. We’re taking pumpkin curry soup (YUMMY!) and waldorf salad.

We’re also keeping our friends and family close to our hearts and wishing you were here or we were there.

Happy Thanksgiving from Lousiana!

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