Records Fall, Sleep Needed

I am trying to recover from a tough weekend.  But, for a change, I’m at the farm and although I have a lot to do over the next few days, its nothing like the past few weeks have been.  Today, I’ve been catching up on bookeeping and entering a ton of credit card slips.  I really have no energy to do much else.

Tank and I worked the auction on Friday.  As it has been, it was nothing great, but okay.  The main differnce was that we packed up Big Red and headed for Amelia Raceway.  Donnie wanted me to cook for the practice session Friday night which turned out to be a bust.  There were quite a few trailers and campers and motor homes there for Saturday’s VDKA Race but noone actually got their carts out and practiced.  We did a little business, nothing great, but we had the time to get everything organized for Saturday.  We stayed at the track until 10:30 pm or so and stayed at a motel only about 10 miles away.

I set my alarm for 4:00 am and eventhough I rolled over for a few more winks, I had Tank up and going and we got to the track about 4:45 and started setting up breckfast.  I served Sausage, Egg and Cheese Biscuits, Bacon Egg and Cheese Biscuits, Cheezy Westerns and Sausage Gravy and Biscuits.  Also juice and coffee.  We opened at 6:00 am and basically sat there looking at each other until 6:45.  Believe me, Tank is no pretty picture at that time in the morning.  Then it started.

By 9:30, I was sold out of everything I had for breckfast.  When we sold our last order of biscuit and gravy, and the last Sausage, Egg and Cheese, we had about thirty people in line and had no choice but to change over to the regular menu on the fly.  Didn’t even have time to wash a single dish. 

About the same time, Petey, and two new guys, Brian and Ben arrived and immediately jumped into the frying pan.  Tank took over the cooking, I gave Petey a quick training on my new cash register, and then I had to leave.  Basically, I didn’t even get a chance to meet Brian and Ben, much less tell them anything about what to expect.

During my drive to Harrisonburg–about 3 1/2 hours pulling Big Red, I talked to Tank a couple of times and sent my sister on a shopping trip before she headed for Amelia to replentish supplies.  By the time she got there, Tank had another list and sent her immediately to a local Food Lion.  NOTE:  This happened several more times during the day.  And, according to Jean and Tank, the boys were awesome!  Brian and Ben, eventhough it was their first day, were soon cooking burgers and steaks and pouring funnel cakes, running the register and doing anything needed.  That took a load off Tank and Petey.  Really good guys.  And from the reports I’ve gotten, everything went unbelievably well.

I got to Harrisonburg and dropped Big Red at JMU and at least had an hour or so break before Peggy and I started getting ready for the clash with Number 1 ranked Appalachian State.  We really didn’t know what to expect.  Because it was a little cooler, I thought lemonade would be down and funnel cakes would be up.  But since it looked like a really good game, I was a little afraid of people actually watching the game instead of standing in line for a goodie.  If I’d paid for a ticket to see a No. 1 team, I’d be in the stands!

Wrong.

Peggy and I got slammed.  This week, she was pretty well prepared for the lemonade, but I got overwhelmed with the funnel cakes and corn dogs.  As the night wore on, and my lack of sleep starting to get to me, it was HELL.

After the game, a gentleman from Appalachian State that was maybe our first or second customer before the game, stopped by and said to Peggy. “I saw thousands of funnel cakes in the stands.  How do two of you possibly put out so many?  Do you make your batter ahead of time?”

“Believe it or not, Chillie makes it as we go,”  she answered.  “But, I’ll show you his secret.”

With that, she took him behind Big Red and showed him my trusty electric drill with its funky attachment that a friendly competitor gave me.  “He can do five gallons of batter in 30 seconds with this.  Then it’s just a matter of filling his pitcher to keep up with the demand.  Tonight, he made batter three times.  That took him less than two minutes total.”

The guy left scratching his head.

By the way, JMU won the game knocking off a Number 1 for the first time.

In the end, we set a new record for JMU and were less than $100 away from our old record for a football game at Liberty.  Had I not been so exhausted and shutdown with less than a minute to go in the game, we probably would have surpassed that record too.

Meanwhile, at Amelia, Tank, Jean and the boys sold out of virtually everything.  In total, it was the biggest day I’ve ever had by far.  And the second biggest week.

This week, I’ve got to retrieve equipment from Amelia and clean all of it including Big Red.  Friday is a state sale at the auction so it should be a little better.  Saturday, there is racing at Amelia but won’t be anything like this past week.  But, I found out tonight, Belvedere Plantation opens this weekend so Big Red will probably be there.  For now, it’s a night for some sleep.