Again as this time of year proves to me that it can be overwhelming I have not had a chance to sit down and write in my blog...
Things are still rather quiet here this morning so I thought I might have some solice to write a bit...Tony is out on a route, a driver walked off the job on Friday after not completing his route, there were still turkeys to deliver and about 20 customers missed, so Tony opted to run those today (Sunday), and the rest of the weeks schedule will be alternated between Tony and my parents getting all the routes completed.
I have been "off" from Saturday farmers markets the past 2 weekends, so I decided it was time to clean all the carpets, and drapes, and get rid of all the toys and outgrown clothes, to get ready for the holidays...plus since we have no basement our storage capabilities are limited and I can't stand "clutter"...so I have been busy free-cycling many many boxes the last few weeks.
Yesturday, I joined Tony and my Mom at the Baltimore FM, where we had over 60 turkeys to sell from pre-orders and lots of extra products. We were quite busy the entire 4 hours of the market adn exceeded our sales goal that we set forth for the day...it was our best day yet, bringing home over $4,000!!
Gabe's boyscout troop is staying busy. Between his 3-4 meetings a month we have been having weekend outings as well. The last 2 weekends we have been working on their fall food drive called "Scouting for Food." The first Saturday we hit neighborhoods around Myersville putting out plastic grocery bags asking those to fill them up with canned goods and leave them out for us the next Saturday. Gabe and his friends had such a good time going door to door and then picking up all those bags of food...it was kind of like at Easter when you are searching for your Easter basket! He is working towards earning more beads to go on his Tiger badge, and seems to really be enjoying this time together with his friends and his Dad.
As those close to us know, that Gabe worked all summer on making necklaces and bracelets with his great grandma because he broke his arm and could not go swimming. Well, their business really took off and he made over $150 that we put away for him and we left him keep a bit to spend as he wished. Gabe made 2 purchases...the first being a pack of Pokemon cards and a book to explain the game and the second and more recent purchase was a Webkinz dog for Sophia...BUT wait before you think how sweet he is, all along he knew he wanted the code in order to play with a new one online, and he knew that Sophia would just want the stuffed toy, so REALLY he was getting it for himself!
The creamery sold almost 600 turkeys this year...WAY more than we ever wished for...so it is lots of work getting everything organized and routed out so that all the customers get their turkeys before the BIG day. Tony rented the largest moving truck he could and him and I headed to Thurmont to pick up the birds, we then brought them home, unloaded the 8 skids and organized them by size in our refrigerated truck, we then took the rental back to Frederick and then came back home to start the process of pulling the turkeys in route order for the next days deliveries...we have to do this each day from Friday thru next Tuesday, for 7 drivers on each day...some drivers have over 30 turkeys going out, so keeping everything together is critical to ensure each and every customer ends up with the correct turkey...it is no wonder we are glad when Thanksgiving Day is here and not able to eat any turkey!!
My mom celebrated her birthday last week, so we are going to take her out to lunch today at Miyako's a Japanese Hibachi Restaurant in Frederick, they have never been before and the kids LOVE watching how their food is prepared! Unfortunately, earlier this week Mom was diagnosed with Type II diabetes and is now daily checking her blood sugar and changing her diet, we are hoping that the new meds they placed her own might be able to make her pancreas work enough that she will not be insulin dependant but it is too early to tell at this point...