Dunster Mother's Day Yard Sale

    This morning we drove out to the tiny community of Dunster to see what bargains they had on the tables for their annual Mother’s Day Yard Sale.  Our week of stellar, hot, sunny weather was coming to an end, and there were thunderstorm warnings, and as we approached, the showers had already begun.  

    Before the rain began in earnest, we had managed to buy a few bedding plants, and a bird feeder, and had time to talk to a few acquaintances that we hadn’t seen for a while.  As the rain began to fall harder, I felt sorry for the venders who were scrambling around trying to keep all their wares under cover in the pouring rain.

    Going to the Dunster Sale reminded me of my small black and white television episode.  We had a small portable TV that we no longer used, and so one year, I donated it to the FHA (Fraser Headwaters Alliance, the local environmental group), so they could sell it at the Dunster sale.  I think they had put a $15 price on it.

    Over the following summer, I had to re-install my satellite TV dish which I had re-located out in the barnyard.  To re-aim the dish, I had to have the satellite receiver, hooked up to a television, beside the dish, so I could monitor the signal, as I moved the dish around trying to find the satellite.

    It meant that I had to load up my big color television from the living room, onto a wheelbarrow, and wheel it out to the dish, then string a couple of extension cords from the house to power it.  I feared for the TV the whole time I was moving it in the wheelbarrow, and it felt very weird sitting with the giant color TV out in the pasture.

   As I did it, I was wishing that I still had that little portable black and white television, that I had given away, because it would have been a whole lot easier to move, and would have worked just as well in finding the satellite signal.

    The next year when the Dunster Mother’s Day Yard Sale came around, I was happy to spot my old black and white TV, once again sitting on the FHA table with the same $15 price.  It evidently hadn’t sold the previous year.

    I was happy to lay down the 15 bucks and regain the possession of my old TV.  I have used it several times to check things with my satellite TV system, since I re-purchased it, and will never part with it again.

View my paintings at:  www.davidmarchant.ca