A Harrowing Affair

Labour Day Weekend witnessed our first visit at the Harrow Fair - both as guests, and as vendors. The Fair was a four-day show running Thursday to Sunday, and including Wednesday night setup it made for one very long and hot weekend! The Fair also runs long days (9am-11pm) on top of travel time.

Unlike the usual art shows, the Fair had tons of activities, live music, livestock judging, great food options, and lots of great people watching. It helps when you have good neighbours too.....special thanks to K&K across the way for their quality playlists!

Things started off slow for sales - unlike art shows, where patrons generally attend one day of a multi-day event.....at the Harrow Fair people come every day! Mind you, at art shows people are coming to...well, buy art. People come to the Fair to have blast....and MAYBE buy something. We also had a few new rules to follow....including a mandatory exit sign for the tent and a fire extinguisher.

Sales picked up each day, with Sunday apparently being the "come back and buy all the things you've been checking out all weekend" day. We got a nasty thunderstorm on Saturday night and thought that might be the end of the night.....but the moment the rain stopped the entry gate was suddnely lined up around the corner! Talk about die-hards!

In spite of the five-day ordeal, the Fair felt less like work than most shows.....we were having too much fun (other than too much sun). At least they had a misting tent for staying cool!

We ended things with a well-earned patio dinner at Renny's on the way back home.

The Open Door at the Harrow Fair!

Perch dinner at Renny's - a rare treat!

Cooling off with some cold local brews

My belt broke mid-day - so Jane MacGyver'd a solution!

A brief but heavy downpour on Saturday night

On with the Fair!

Exotic slushy drinks for Jane

The parade begins!

The crowds return as the clouds part

Only at the Harrow Fair.......

Crank up the rides!

Sloth Five!

Bucket o' Babes!

Waiting for the crowds to arrive

And we're out!

August and Everything After

August was a blur of weekend art shows, with Erieau melding into Tilbury, Amherstburg, and then the Harrow Fair. In between, there was the frantic scramble to make more of whatever kept selling out and to maintain enough inventory to stock each show.

Jane made time in there somewhere to have knee surgery, to repair what the orthopedic surgeon dubbed a "shredded meniscus". Now we wait out the recovery period, before she can have a gel injection to substitute for the missing cartilage.....right in the middle of her busy season!

We can only rave about the surgeon and all of the wonderful staff at Windsor Regional Hospital. They even let me stay with Jane until right before the operating room, to help ease her anxiety with my usual brand of jerk-based humour.

 It took until August for the first fire of the year!

 Setting up at Art by the River

Sharing a  Frito Salad with Chicken at Renny's

 Art by the River.....from the river!

Good eats at Art in the Park Tilbury!

 The Open Door set up in Tilbury

 Post-surgical implements

Stuck in the mud on the way to empty the port-a-pot

Summer Weekends

We bid July farewell with two days at the Walkerville Art Walk, including some rare night art with lighting for the tent. The booth was conveniently walkable to Walkerville Brewery, and the patio at the Kildare House.

Friends Ashley and James (and little Henry!) from eastern Ontario made a visit to Caesar's, so we joined them for dinner and some long overdue catching up.

Jane squeezed in arthroscopic knee surgery on short notice - at an appointment with the orthopedic surgeon, he literally said "how about tomorrow?". The staff at Windsor Regional Hospital were fabulous from start to finish, and even let me stay with Jane right to the OR to help keep her anxiety in check. The surgery went very well, though the nausea from the anaesthesia and antibiotics lasted nearly a week.

The August long weekend took us to Erieau for Art on the Boulevard - of all shows to do with Jane pretty much incapacitated in recovery....this is the one! The unique setup of Erieau with just one wide boulevard in and out means you can back up right to your spot for easy unloading....plus you have a large captive audience of summer cottagers!

The show went very well, and Vanessa came down to join us. We made a quick stop at the marina for enough fuel to make it home, and another quick stop at Bayside for some local brews to go! The three of us enjoyed a well-earned dinner on the patio at Renny's.

John and Julie joined us for the rest of the long weekend as well, for some board games, beverages, more Renny's, and some good old fashioned R&R under the shade of a Manitoba Maple.

Oh, and I had a birthday in there too.

 Fresh fruit run along the Lake Erie shoreline

 A rainbow connection

 Walkerville Art Walk

 Art by Night!

 August long weekend in Erieau

 Art on the Boulevard

Weekend in Goderich

A lovely weekend of warm but bearable weather saw us attending a three-day art show at the Goderich Arts and Crafts festival in The Square, a beautiful venue in what is officially Canada's Prettiest Town. We headed up on Thursday night by scenic backroads with a full van, and set up camp at the lovely Falls Reserve Conservation Area near Benmiller.

The weekend was busy with cottagers browsing, and many buying....and after Friday morning setup, one person in particular chose to help themselves to a sign while we had breakfast nearby. Enjoy.

In some downtime, I checked out Square Brewing in Goderich with their signature "crowlers", as well as the local beaches, salt mine and harbour. I also hung out at the campground and did some reading, though also spending a fair bit of time at the tent with Jane and great neighbour John Harper (pottery guy), as well as nearby vendors Kate Daniel and Earl French, who shared many great travel stories and insights.

We dined several times at Pat and Kevin's Diner on The Square, and donated a sign to their extensive and humourous wall collection. They in turn donated a sandwich and a few local beers (Cowbell Brewing and Bayfield Brewing) in my direction. It turns out that the Kevin in Pat and Kevin's is the Mayor of Goderich, Kevin Morrison. He had a great sense of humour and shared some good insights on the town and the art festival.

John and Julie came up to visit on the Sunday, and spent some time at the booth before looking around the craft fair. We also ended up at the aforementioned diner for a bite to eat!

We also made time to visit the Maitland Cemetery - what a huge and crazy place that is! Given that Jane's family originally landed in Goderich, we figured there would be some good history here....but we were totally unprepared for the sheer size of the cemetery. We need to return, possibly during next year's art show, having done some better homework.

Camping near Goderich

Falls Reserve Conservation Area on the Maitland River

Goderich Courthouse in The Square

The Open Door!

The Bedford Hotel - formerly The Albion, once owned by Jane's ancestor before it burned down

Goderich Cenotaph

The old train station - converted!

One of the local beaches along Lake Huron

The local Salt Mine

Maitland Cemetery in Goderich

Art Shows!

Summer weekends mean art show season - including several over the last few weekends. We went straight from Art in the Park in Blenheim to Art in the Alley in Wheatley...and into Art at the Marina in Leamington over the Canada Day long weekend. The Prime Minister even made an appearance at Highbury Canco on his Canada Day tour.

And what a brutally hot and humid weekend it was! Temperatures stayed in the high 30's (Celsius), with Humidex values in the mid-40's. Brutal. In addition to water bottles and fans, Jane brought a frozen 4 L bottle of water, which she kept kept hugging like a special friend.  The ephemeral fish flies were also particularly nasty in Leamington, clinging to tent and artwork alike.

We ended up eating at Renny's THREE nights in row....just too hot and tired after long days in the sun to cook anything.

On the plus side....we sold a lot of art!

Art in the Alley at Renny's

Art in the Park Blenheim

Talbot Trail Place in Blenheim

Lake Erie shoreline from Leamington Marina

Art at the Marina in Leamington

Leamington Marina on Canada Day

Fish flies!

Heat reduction strategies

Heat reduction strategies, Part II

HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!