A year ago, we closed for the season, as scheduled, the weekend before all the schools in NY closed due to the onset of the Pandemic. It was preceded by a couple weeks of stress about the incipient outbreak downstate and the mass start adult obstacle course with 3000 out of town attendees being hosted nearby.
The Monday following school closures, a friend, who happens to be a sales rep for a food distributor, began his weekly sales email with “Peculiar times.” Since then, a day hasn’t passed that I have not had that phrase cross my mind. While we have all found our groove for this situation, it’s still not normal.
Having just completed what I desperately hope is the only Pandemic Season, I’ve been reflecting back on it’s entirety. I am overwhelmed with gratitude for our customers, staff, family, and all of their support through this difficult season. I set out with three primary goals for this year: don’t be the reason Covid spreads through our community, pay all the bills, and be able to open again for the 89th Season. We’ve paid all the bills. We’re good to open again and continue/resume the tradition. Most importantly, through planning, diligence, sacrifice, hard work, and good luck, no one working here ever tested or was suspected of being positive. While it was a season filled with extra work for less business, getting to those goals mean I’m still counting it as a success.
Vaccine supply increasing and the coming spring, fill me with hope for a normal 89th Season. Which is a welcome change from this time last year, when I was dreading trying to find a way to open for a Fall that I knew wasn’t going to be like any we’d seen before.
We will be open for our first ever Easter holiday pickups on Saturday, April 3rd. Which we are planning on still doing in the drive-thru style of this season. We’re planning on resuming our Spring/Summer season this year in May. How we will run that will get determined as we get closer based on the best practices for the situation at that point. Given the projections that there will be enough vaccine for all adults in the country by May we’re hopeful that we’ll be open again as normal. However as the last year has taught us, it’s that situations can change rapidly and we have to be prepared to roll with the peculiar times.
In the mean time, we’ll be busy deep cleaning, painting, doing maintenance, and maybe take a little time off. We’re incredibly thankful for all of your support and business through this difficult season. Your continued patronage made all the extra work worthwhile, and I can’t wait to see you all inside.
