Hot tomato

Even with the cooler weather and rain we've had this past week, I'm still harvesting tomatoes. I just can't eat them all. Tomatoes for every meal. I don't want to start hating them, so I've given bags away to the neighbors and friends. I'm pretty sure we're getting close to the end here. It definitely feels like fall now, and the nights and mornings are darn chilly, even if we get a few hours of sun in the afternoon. The ripening is not going to be happening at that breakneck pace, and the little skins will be getting tough. So I'm just enjoying what I've got left, and dreaming about next summer's crop.

The votes are in, and the favorite soaps for this year's Puyallup Fair were: Vanilla Bean & Honey, Patchouli, French Lavender and Roses & Violets. Now, those are not the most popular kids in school at all the shows, or even in general. But they were a hit at the fair, and I sold more soap bars than ever. The coolest kid on the block of the new fall soaps was Apple Jack. I only brought the new ones towards the end of the show. My intention was to sell the remaining spring and summer ones first, and make sure that I had enough fall soaps for the mail orders that were flooding in from the newsletter. But for what it's worth, the Apple was the top seller.

In mail orders, however, the Moroccan Fig is the queen. It's been a favorite among loyal customers for years, and they can't wait for it to come out again so they can stock up.

If you're planning on ordering a few things in the next week, a couple of notes - I'm temporarily out of the aforementioned Patchouli, Vanilla Bean & Honey, and Lavender Pear soaps. I've got batches curing, and they'll be ready in a week or so. But the Fair wiped me out of what I had in stock right now. I'm not making any changes to the website however. You know why? Because I never remember that I made all those notes and inventory limits and coding. And I don't have time to keep going back and updating it either. So last time I did that, I found out that months later, I still had the cabosh on a couple of my fragrances and nobody could order them from the site. I just plain forgot to fix it again when they were ready. And I already know my mental capacities are sketchy, so I'm leaving the website alone.

If you want to order them, go ahead. I'll take the requests as they come and let you know if I have to "back-order" a bar or two. But hopefully they'll all be ready for shipping pretty darn quick, and the glitches will be minimal.