Prairie Dog Pals had it’s spring garage sale on 16 and 17 May. The event takes a lot of time and work. Volunteers propagate plants in the fall for the spring sale and must tend to them all winter! Plus we collect donations at any time which means sorting them, pricing them and then storing them until the sale…here’s the recap!
Day 1 of the Garage Sale: We started setting up at 6 AM setting out the tables and merchandise and had our first sales well before the opening time of 8 AM. Early morning temperatures were crisp, in the low fifties but it warmed up throughout the day. The weather was absolutely beautiful and the wind was gracious and kept to gentle breezes. We had wide variety of merchandise to begin with and had light to good traffic throughout the day.
The second day of the garage sale was much like the first, spurts of buyers followed by periods of little to no traffic. While it would have been nice to have a steady stream of traffic, the slow periods gave the volunteers time to rest, organize and ponder the imponderables. Generally we sell a lot of home started plants and as in previous sales we did sell a fair number of plants. We had a selection of indoor and outdoor plants including dracena, bromeliads; airplane plants, hen and chicks, cactus (of course we are in the south west) some aloes, and a few other exotic plants. We had a collection of jewelry and keepsake ornaments donated by Joan S which sold very well. There were two mention able sales: a gentleman and his wife from El Paso purchased the whole table of vintage tools including pipe wrenches, winches, and other assorted implements of destruction; another gentleman purchased an oxygen generator that had been donated by one of our board members. My question is who goes to a garage sale to purchase an oxygen generator? I guess one must be open to the possibility!!! Having said that nor would I have expected a couple to purchase a table full of tools! There were some great moments during both days. A dad and his two young sons (the sons mainly) kind of went wild with the purchases. When they got to the table to pay the “deal” unfolded. The sons purchases were totaled up and a contract (verbal of course) reached between the dad and his sons about working off their purchases. he paid but they agreed to “work” off their purchases for $3/hour of work. All were pleased with the arrangement lest you think child labor was involved. The highlight of the sale was the breakfast provided to the writer and other volunteers prepared by Frances G., breakfast enchiladas with HOMEMADE red chile. The chile was excellent, but if you are familiar with the red or green conundrum here in New Mexico, I’m a green…having said that the home made chile was superb and breakfast beyond compare. We were fortunate on both days to have gorgeous weather! The mornings started out a bit brisk and late afternoons were warm, but the days were pleasant and were spared the strong winds that had plagued a few of our previous sales. I’d use the term balmy! We want to thank all the volunteers who helped, the donors who provided the merchandise and the folks who decided to help the prairie dogs by purchasing the goods!
