Riverfest 2011

Riverfest, our local art in the park event was Saturday. We had a great time and visited with a lot of people and sold a decent amount of jewelry ( sold the necklace on the left, a Labradorite on Hollyhock leaf). My son Sam and his band played a set and they were very good. The event was a little bittersweet for me since I got the event going, along with Nancy Ebbert on the music side and it is getting better and bigger. This was the third year and it will soon become a treasured institution in Lander if the energy can be maintained.

The reports of sales were a bit mixed. I think that the government playing chicken on the brink of default may have had some impact on sales. Also, summer we buy for ourselves, not for others which accounts for the lowered sales compared to the Art in the Afternoon Christmas sale. Also, we must admit that Lander is a small town. 7000 people is not a large basis. We are still working to develop an appreciation for the arts within a larger slice of the population. We do seem to have an inordinate amount of people making art though and that is a wonderful part of our town.

The greenhouse is going great guns (update: installed in early June) with the cukes coming on strong and maybe another week for the tomatoes. Next year we will get the tomatoes in earlier and see what we can do for early crops. Sales have been good in the first two Farmer's Markets with greens, basil and bouquets.