We opened on July 17th.  So it's been almost 2 weeks.  I have to say that it's been wonderful to finally see families coming and having fun doing something as wholesome as picking blueberries together.  It's a GREAT feeling to see our dream coming to fruition!

We have have met so many sweet, well-behaved kids and great, conscientious parents!  Such a lot of nice folks!  I feel grateful.  I feel happy that we can provide so many people with a happy place to come and make memories.

No, we're not going to make a lot this year.  I will be happy to be able to buy one leather rocker for the church nursery.  I am not sure I will have enough money to do a Thrive fundraiser.  It's OK.  It's God's field.  He'll guide and provide for whatever He wants.  That gives me peace.

Speaking of His field, I re-learned another valuable lesson on trusting God to be my defense.  Yep, the neighbors again.  This time a social media post, asking Olalla residents not to patronize our establishment, because it violates their privacy.  It was extremely vexing!  It was also sad, because it was written by the one family member over there who seemed to be friendly and reasonable.  Apparently, he is just like the rest.  It did sound like his Dad put him up to it, same rhetoric, "been here 24 years...blah blah blah." But it was disappointing, annoying, provocative.  Not to mention inaccurate and inflammatory. Brought up those same feelings as before, when we ended up having to hire an attorney.

So,  I knew God wanted me to sit back and let Him take care of it, and I did.  And I watched Him defend us through the overwhelming support of the community!  Not only did they shame him for his post, they became future customers, spreading the word and increasing my publicity 10 times over!  Some of the posts in support of our field were absolutely golden!  I laughed out loud at the perfect wording.  And even though the neighbor removed his posts in embarrassment, others had saved the screenshots and immortalized them by reposting them with hilarious rebuttals. So, what he intended for evil, God used for good!

Anyway, being open by appointment has been nice.  I can choose my hours and control the flow based on how many berries we have.  I think it's a great way to do business...may do it this way next year.  We'll see.