being from vancouver, one would think i might know how to operate in the rain. and while i used to be fine with living life in a constant state of dampness, my advanced age and curmudgeonliness have made me a very cranky customer when it comes to selling crafts in the rain. well, this time i swore would be different. we knew the weather reports well in advance (it was even pouring as we drove into town last night) so i had time to psychologically prepare myself. i resolved to stay positive and figure out solutions to our situation that would keep us happy, safe and dry.
first of, we do now have a new better tent that we got on sale at home depot. it's not perfectly rain-proof but pretty rad.
the one big flaw we discovered is that since the seams are stitched, the rain-proofing along them is all full of tiny holes and tends to leak quickly. and since the seams run above the uppermost poles of the tent, this sends a little series of drips down the four ceiling poles. as a fix for this problem, i had the major brainwave to simply tie yarn along the poles from the point of the highest drip. this doesn't patch the holes, or stop the leaks from happening but it does divert the drips down the yarn in a path-of-least-resistance approach to keeping the rain away from our stuff. it worked like a charm!
i know this is a pretty niche problem for my first how-to but i was just so shamelessly proud of myself for figuring out such an easy do-it-yourself fix to a problem at least a few of you may face in the future. and it all kept working through a whole day of torrential rains!
we also pulled the mats off the floor boards of the car to keep our under-table stuff from getting wet on the bottom. this also worked like magic.
after hours of fussing and mussing and adjusting and trying to stay dry and positive, i looked out of the tent and saw this on the curb:
i guess choosing to find things fun makes them fun. also, kids are more waterproof than balloons. who knew?
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