Friday, November 28, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving


It has been an exciting month here on the tundra. The state of the stock market and other financial issues have force me back into much more of my real job and therefore less in the shabby world. Surprisingly the November sale at Gypsy Lea's was excellent. Good news - I sold almost everything that I had there. Bad news - I didn't have very much stuff there.

I now have an even greater appreciation for the set up that Kris and Gypsy do each month. Kris was very ill for the November set up time. I decided that I was going to help Gypsy do it. I spent parts of 5 days there moving smalls, moving them again and then moving them some more. That was a prelude to dancing with the furniture. And this month everyone brought in tables. I tried to arrange tables on tables and tables next to tables and table set sideways on top of one table and under the next. I shuffled and shuffled and it still didn't meet the high standards of the earlier sales. I was worn out and depressed by my failure. Then miraculously Kris appeared on the day before the sale started. She and Gypsy tore down, reshuffled and foo foo'd the place to perfection. The hog pens became a florist shop and the sale was saved.

I was there 5 days in a row and didn't take a single picture of the shop. It doesn't make any sense, I had the camera in the truck and never brought it into the shop. I also had a couple of boxes of smalls that never made it in the door. I spent more time than ever on this sale and had no merchandise there to sell. Oh well, maybe I'll get something done for the December sale.

Mr. Flannery

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Life on the Tundra

Boy am I happy that I buttoned everything up last night. It has rained and rained and rained some more. The winds were high enough to shred the tarp cover on Babe's kennel. The storage at the top of the hill stayed in place and dry inside, so all is right with my strange and small world. The best part is that this was all rain. This time of the year it could just as well been 20" of snow with high drifts. Damn I hate the weather here. Such is life on the tundra.

Mr. Flannery

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

And the Dance Goes On

One more day without rain (or snow). It threatened, but didn't start until after 4:00 PM. I spent most of the day listening to oldies on the radio and dancing with furniture. There is a 50+ foot hill behind my house. The house and main garage are on the bottom and the storage is at the top. I pulled my tiny trailer up the hill dozens of times loaded with furniture, doors and other debris. My good buddy, Babe, had to run full speed in front of each load up and back down the hill. He is now sleeping next to my chair doing an occasional jowl rattle as he sighs after his big day.

My burn pile (beyond the top of the hill) is nearly the size of a semi tractor trailer. It is loaded with my debris, a summer's worth of my neighbor and I playing lumberjack, the burnables from Kris and Mike and other sundry wooden objects. My fellow lumberjack wants to make sure that I don't burn the pile until he is available to watch. I will not ignite the pile until there is a coating of snow on the ground.

I am now 98% finished with my project, a couple of more clear hours later this week and I will be ready for the winter. I also located a number of interesting and hopefully valuable items amongst the debris that was in the storage. And now I have the weekend to get prepared for the next sale at Gypsy Lea's. Oh my!

Mr. Flannery

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Shuffling the Inventory

Its almost past "that time of year" here on the tundra. The time to get everything ready for the Winter. I have been lax on my preparations, but I have also been rewarded with very untundra like weather. It has been 70* and sunny here the past few days. So I have been dancing with furniture.

I had to clear the projects from the driveway and place them in my covered storage area. Of course I had to reset and sort everything that was already in the storage space. I have been stacking things at the entrance and pulling things out randomly all Summer. So I spent much of yesterday just rearranging and trashing things in the storage already. Today I started hauling and stacking and dancing with all the wonderful junk that I had on my driveway.

I am hoping for one more day of good weather to get everything finalized before the snow. Damn I hate the weather here.

Mr. Flannery