Can't Complain About the Rain

Our booth at the Leesburg Flower & Garden Festival last weekend was almost a complete wash-pout - literally! We arrived early Saturday AM to find our space in the Lightfoot Lot was a pool of water a few inches deep, as the day progressed it only got deeper. Turns out the bank next door had a roof drain directly dumped into our booth - nice.

With both the magazine's inventory being all paper as well as my brother's antique botanical prints, we were pretty concerned. (Unlike other sellers, who we were not in the standing pool, and had inventory of plants and garden items that actually would not mind a bit of wet.)

My brother had set up a sturdy canopy and sides so we perfectly dry - except for our completely soaking feet and socks. All day with wet, cold feet is just not a good time.

I kept asking for the Fairfax Park folks, who the event, to bring push-brooms and they finally showed around Noon to sweep it out. By that point, the rain had petered out and the rest of the day it was gray and a bit chilly with a light drizzle every once in a while, but nothing bad.

On Sunday, we arrived to find it had stormed over night and our canopy ceiling was bulging with accumulated water - which we easily bailed out and got in order. Of course, the ground was just as bad as the first day. This time I learned my lesson though and we had bright our own broom to push the water out as well as water-proof footwear. It started off fairly light and clearing, then stormed around Noon, then cleared for the rest of the day.

Despite all that rain and the dent it made in the overall attendance figures - the magazine did pretty good sales - actually one of our best shows ever as counted by new subscriptions per day! Makes me only wonder if it had been nice how much better we might have done.

Well, I share this experience as an example of the vagaries of going to outdoor garden events. You have to take the good with the bad in stride and really it could've been a lot worse - no real wind or thunderstorm issues - and boy, did that warm shower afterwards feel good!