Mixed Reviews for End of May
The last week of May was clearly one of the most confusing weeks of the year, but ended strong with major successes on Saturday and Sunday at Woodbridge.
I worked the first three games of the long homestand (Mon, Tue and Wed) by myself. Monday was good but not more than I could handle, Tuesday was awful and Wendesday was so-so. After the game Wednesday night, I drove back to the farm to pick up Big Red and load for the country music show featuring Ty Herndon at Meadow Events Park on Saturday. I left early Friday morning, set up Red and drove on to Woodbridge for Game 4 on Friday night.
The game started off strong with a great pre--game, especially with lemonade. Then, just about the time for the National Anthem, a major storm hit with heavy lightening, strong winds (45-60mph) and hard rain. Tornado warnings were issued, the stadium lost power and the game was called. My tent was trashed.
After Tank, Mike and I cleaned up, I drove to Harrisonburg and spent the night at Peggy's. Saturday morning we were off early as the gates opened at MEP at 2PM and we had to prep everything as I was offering a full menu. At 2, the gates opened to three cars. By 3, there were maybe 10 cars. The concert started at 4 and by the time the headliner came on, there was maybe 300 people, including staff. Needless to say, it was a dog.
I really fell bad as I like Anthony and Joe, my Savor contacts, alot and neither of the shows I've done at MEP have been successful. They still haven't seen what we can do with the right traffic.
Peggy and I cleaned up and packed up Big Red and headed for Woodbridge to work the Sunday game (now a double header) with Tank and Mike.
Meanwhile, Tank, Mike, Caleb, Chuck and Ryan worked Game 5 Saturday night, also a double header. Only they had a great night featuring over 30 gallons of lemonade and a decent amount of funnel cakes.
Sunday, to end the homestand, we did almost 40 gallons of lemonade but not many funnel cakes. So it was a good day, but clearly not a great one. Still, the month ended strong thanks to the PNat games.
Back at the farm, the pool is open for the year and yesterday, I even got in the water. In the past, rarely have a deemed the water warm enough until July 4th, but the 100 degree days made it a necessity. Despite my protests and complaints, it felt pretty good.
This morning I got up early to do the pool vacuuming. After I finished, I went into the pool house to backwash and rinse the filter. I flipped the switch off, reset the filter to backwash and reached for the switch to turn it back on. I wondered why Gene had put an old black rubber soaker hose that I had accedently run over with the John Deere, in the corner around the switch to the pool filter. As I thought this, the hose wrapped around my arm and about a 47 ft snake slithered into an old wash tub we have hanging on the wall. I messed my pants!
Seriously, after my heart rate got back to normal, I asked Oscar, that is his name, (and the grandson of Big Oscar who haunted our Chicken House from when Georgia was a prison colony until about four years ago) if he'd like to take a swim. Thankfully, he declined. Big Oscar was over 8 ft when we went to the snake pit in the sky.
I haven't been back in the pool house.
Monday starts the longest homestand I've seen at Pfitzner Stadium--14 games. Plus, on the weekend I'm cooking for the Big Dog Event near Winchester where I'll be serving 500 people 3 meals per day. Plus, on the 15th, there's something like 4,400 kids scheduled. It will be a busy two weeks.
