Successful Howard County Fair Wraps, Despite Hard Times
Many thanks, West Friendship, Columbia etc., for a fine sales year for Heathcote Earthings at “How Cow,” The Howard County (Maryland) Fair! And thanks to the weather goddess for cutting about eight degrees off the usual August heat for a pleasant, inviting atmosphere.
Sales seem to be down by as much as half for most vendors, as Americans put discretionary money, and I imagine their “economic stimulus” checks, into their gas tanks. This gutted our chances of success at the Cecil County Fair, where numbingly high temperatures and thunderstorms conspired with tough times to turn the midway into a ghost town.
Heathcote Earthings is squeezed in two directions by rising fuel and other prices. The cost of our imports, fair trade and other, and the cost of shipping are going up. We’ve expanded our traveling range and bought a van to bring more goods to each show, increasing our mileage costs. And once we’re at each event, customers are much more conservative in their buying than ever before. If a typical family chose forty dollars’ worth of pendants, carvings, bumper stickers and instruments before, now they’re handing me fifteen dollars’ worth at checkout, after collecting an armful and putting things back.
Now I’m off for quick visits to sweeties, family and friends in Kentucky and Virginia. But it’s not all play–I will be helping my mom set up her booth at the Kentucky State Fair, where she’ll be fundraising for and promoting her group home for mentally challenged adults, Harmony Habitat. Mom reports that charitable giving has ground to a halt in these tough times, as well.
When I return to Heathcote I’ll see many of you at the Maryland State Fair, where I’ll be helping out at the Crystal Cottage booth. Then Heathcote Earthings is on to the York Fair and Bloomsburg Fair.
Also be sure to add Spoutwood Farm’s Mother Earth Harvest Festival to your calendar!
And we will have a greatly expanded booth at this year’s Festival of Trees at the Timonium Fairgrounds, the weekend after Thanksgiving.
Please check our calendar of events at the bottom of Hippie Chick Diaries’ Heathcote Earthings page. You’ll find dates, times and links to our upcoming events!
Thanks again for your support of Heathcote Earthings, our own crafts and fair trade!
