Early Mornings

Saturday morning, woke up at 3. Not on purpose. Messed with the cats until 4 and then began preparations to leave for Coupeville. It's funny how there are almost no cars on the road at 5pm, yet there are hundreds of little fishing boats on the water, and dozens more racing over to the best spot for salmon trolling. It was rush hour on the sound.

Coupeville was a mixed bag all over. Mostly nice weather, but a freezing wind racing through and toppling things on Saturday afternoon. Good sales and lots of fun customers the first day, but almost no sales or customers the second day. Usually there are 4 or 5 soap vendors at that rather small show, but this time there were 9. Too much competition for anyone to have a truly good show in the same place - you just can't split the pie into that many slices and still taste the fruit. We all just got a bunch of crumbs. But I had fun meeting a few of the new soap gals in the 'hood (*waves*) and we all got to compare notes on all kinds of stuff.

Sunday morning I had a little extra time before the day got under way to head over to Fort Casey and check it out. I hadn't had the chance to explore that side of the island. Overlooking the straits towards Port Townsend, the Admiralty Head lighthouse is cute, and the fields around the buildings are chock full of deer. It was just me, the hundreds of bunny rabbits, thousands of birds - including quail marching around - and a herd of deer cavorting, playing and running circles around each other in the grass. You could hear the water rushing in the currents down below the cliffs, almost like a waterfall. So much sky - so many shades of grey on a cool, cloudy, solitary morning.



This morning I am taking it a little slow, regrouping and hatching a plan for getting through this week, working ahead for the Best of the Northwest show this coming weekend, and working forward to a very busy September with the Puyallup Fair, the announcement of the fall products and the autumn newsletter. Everything still seems possible in the quiet light and stillness of an early morning.