Thursday morning I was five minutes out from the store when I got the following text from my fabulous assistant manager meg. “hey kenny. not sure what your morning looks like, but I wanted to let you know that it looks like someone shot one of the windows in the night.”

The window had been punctured by a pellet gun with interesting results. It stayed in one piece while I called the police and my landlady and found out that the vandals had hit three other businesses in town too. At 10:30 there was a gust of wind and the center of the window gave way.

Sending glass into the store and out onto the street.

I gazed forth through this new development.

Shortly thereafter someone from The Homestead Bakery appeared with a bag of sandwiches. They had sent us lunch.

Next a customer came by with a vase of flowers culled from her garden.

Just before we closed a florist appeared delivering more flowers. A gift from a whole group of wonderful customers who sent a note saying. “Kenny and Crew, We’re so sorry this happened to you. We love your store. Your UMF and Farmington Crew.”

In between those two flower deliveries there was a world of contrasting communications. Serious difficulties involving liability and emergency repair counterpointed by an outpouring of community support. In the end we were able to get plywood put in. It will be three weeks until the order of new custom glass will be here.

And meg came down on her day off today to paint the outer plywood.

Petrarch once observed that “when a house is aflame people run for water but when the soul is aflame people throw on more wood.” He has a point there, but one may add that when a window is shot out a few people may show up with firewood but most bring much appreciated water. I am so appreciative of my staff and my customer friends.