The 2005 Faire season saw the bittersweet ending
to a hard, hot, difficult summer.
Recent visitors to this site or the Faire know this, but for those who don't, that was our last season at the Sterling Renaissance Faire. 

We are NOT going out of business, we have just left the Faire. 

Among the many going-away gifts left on the final weekend were two framed copies
of the same picture;  the picture at left. A picture of Sue-Ryn standing in one of her old
Faire gardens  some 25 years ago. There were other gifts: a rat from the Rat-catcher; 
a sculpture from Devonshire Tileworks, a fountain and a Casteel hummingbird, wine and 
wonders;  everything from the touching  to the flat out loony. Locking the loft for the last 
time was a  bittersweet moment; a lot of work has gone into that booth and a lot of work 
done in it, a lot of laughter and even a few tears. A major chapter in  our lives  has closed.
Sue-Ryn had already  been doing the Faire for ten years when she and the Troll met, and 
he's been a part of helping her there for the 17 years we have been together. Over that
time Hill Woman has changed and  grown, finally reaching the point  where it was time to
leave the Faire behind. We will miss it, and most of all we will miss the people.

So why did we leave?  We have been coming up to this point for the last few years, and we  finally made the decision: it was time to let go of the Faire. There are a lot of reasons. There is family: Sue-Ryn has inherited the care of her handicapped older brother; and Steve's parents are getting older and need his help more often. There is home: Chloe, our rescue dog, can't really be boarded out, so we had to find house and dog sitters for each weekend of the Faire--a difficult juggling act that had Steve doing the Faire solo for part of last season. There is the shop, Northern Paradise: if that is going to grow and reach its potential, Sue-Ryn has to be able to be in it during its busiest season--which just happens to be while the Faire is running. Plus keeping the shop staffed has been hard, and may well get harder next year.  Then there is Hill Woman: mail order doesn't stop during the summer, and trying to keep up with it while also producing enough stock for the Faire and being at the Faire from Friday through Monday has gotten extremely difficult to manage.

Then there is the increased need for us to be around due to Sue-Ryn having become a wildlife rehabilitator. Steve will probably get his license in the next year or so. There are other issues. The Faire takes a large chunk out of our lives every summer; keeping up with  it and all the other things in our lives put us on a frantic, grueling treadmill every spring, and we wouldn't get off it until late September. Our last day off was in late April, and we didn't get even a partial day off until the Tuesday afternoon after the Faire ended. The first whole day off was supposed to be Labor Day Monday, but we worked most of it after all.  Even walking the dog has to be squeezed in between an endless list of demands and tasks.

So after 27 years of doing the Faire, Sue-Ryn is ready to hang up her cape. Yes, she has been there
27 years. That's a long haul of not only the business end, but living out of coolers with no running
water, murderously hot nights, porta-potties, no in-house shower, being eaten alive by mosquitoes in
the evening, sleeping badly, eating badly, having living like a normal person become a dream almost
as sweet and elusive as winning the lottery, commuting in deadly heat, schlepping endless boxes to 
the booth and up and down the stairs from the loft . . . 
We would like to have gardens again, and the occasional evening off. 

So you see, we're giving up all that fun, though, as we said before,   we sure will miss the people.
Make no mistake, Hill Woman will continue as before! We will have more time for the website, more time for mail order, more freedom to create new products, and the chance to be seen at other venues. Hill Woman will get better, Northern Paradise will get better, and our lives will become a bit less crazed in the bargain.

If we saw you at the Faire and told you, we want to thank all of you who have been so kind and understanding. We know that Sue-Ryn's herb booth has been a sort of touchstone at the Faire to a lot of people for a lot of years. Losing it is like having a big old tree in your front yard cut down, a tree you've sat under and swung on and just generally counted on to always be there in the same place. To lose such a thing is hard. But new light may just shine in unexpected places, and new things may grow where it once stood. So for all the Faire years, we thank you, and for all the years  to come, let's look up at this bigger sky and wonder what we will see next.