What a beautiful morning to join the other vendors beside Minnehaha Falls, at our second appearance at Norway Day.  We found our spot and set up in a windstorm nearly as strong as the day before, in Lindstrom.

What a crowd.  Again, lots of former and current readers stopped to chat.  Jerry was wearing his Järna dräkt (Swedish folk costume), which attracted the attention of a couple of young women from China, here on vacation.  They were English teachers and had to pose with Jerry for several photos, with and without his fiddle.  Don't be surprised if the Chinese equivalent of GQ will show Chinese men wearing something approximating a Swedish folk costume on the streets of Beijing, as the latest haute coture.

Between times, Jerry was playing his fiddle, some of the time, attempting to spark interest in the children's parents who stopped to chat.  Everyone enjoyed the expressions on the kid's faces as they plucked or bowed their first, plaintive notes (Life is great!).  Hopefully some seeds were planted.

Sales of Vallkulla, in full sets, were brisk, even though we don't have book four out yet.  Folks stopped to admire the posters on our backdrop, as well as the book covers.  Like Svenskarnas Dag, the meatballs were superb and there was plenty of coffee, too.

More folks admiring Tess's book covers and asking when book four would be out.  I told them two weeks and that was confirmed by the printer, this morning (7-17-08).  Book four has many more photos inside.

Nahlboms Foto are beginning to plan the photo/art for the next novel, based on some preliminary guidelines, even though the manuscript is probably still a year away.