We're Open! I'll post more when I'm not so tired. For some reason blogger isn't letting me upload a photo right now....

We received a surprisingly substantial parcel in the mail today. It was from Adrienne and Zach at Smiling Cow Studio and was full of beautiful hand-crafted porcelain mugs. Adrienne and Zach are planning a move similar to ours from B.C. to Saskatchewan and we wish them all the luck in the world. Hopefully we'll meet on the prairies some day.

We recently received a bunch of DVD copies of the short film Cardboard Cutout by Adrian to sell in our shop.

"Carl is an introverted and withdrawn man who works in a cardboard factory. Carl only communicates with Mike, a petty thief and co-worker. When Mike coerces Carl into participating in a break-and-enter, ‘cardboard’ takes on a whole new meaning."

Thanks Adrian!

While I was away in Edmonton we received a package in the mail containing a splendid selection of robot themed block prints by Vancouver artist Cole Johnston. Thanks Cole!

We've been waiting 4 months for this piece of paper.

It’s been almost a year. I’m feeling introspective.

We knew the move out here was risky. Moving to a new town and getting settled is always difficult. Buying a new home usually ends up costing more than one expects. The same goes with starting a business.

We were setting ourselves up for trouble.

And trouble we’ve had...

Here in Saskatchewan Tyler and I have faced some very real fears. I can still clearly recall nights spent home alone in Dana with Tyler working miles away. Whether it was a windstorm, lightning storm, howling coyotes or neighbors brandishing chainsaws, I felt vulnerable in a way I never did living in the city. Perhaps some of those fears were imagined but it certainly didn’t help that the nearest police station and hospital were two towns away. There were no stores, no businesses at all, and I had no way of leaving. Tyler’s 100 km commute from Bruno to Saskatoon during the long harsh winter left him fearing for his life on many an occasion. Most recently we’ve faced suffocating credit card debt in the face of trying to live on a single low wage income for far longer than expected.

Today, we went to the bank, consolidated all our debt and turned our once brag-worthy initial investment of $6500 into a 10-year mortgage of $14000 (perhaps still brag-worthy to Vancouverites).

All the hard work and stress at least feels like it’s moving us forward. We’re homeowners! We’re going to be business owners! Now we can pay off all of our credit cards and we can afford to buy some inventory for the café. The mortgage will take about a week to process, then we can order some coffee beans and other goodies AND THEN we’ll be opening our doors… yes, FINALLY.

This photo has been declared Image of the Day by CBC Radio 3. Yippee!!

Not Quite Every Building on 500 Main Street, Bruno

This is just a test. I stitched together several different photos (with a nod to Stan Douglas' Every Building on 100 West Hastings [in turn nodding to Ed Ruscha's Every Building on the Sunset Strip]). I'm going to be doing both sides of the street in full.

And yes, our shop sign needs to be much bigger.

I took this photo of Rupert shortly before leaving for Edmonton. He used to take full advantage of the ladder we had leaning against the back of our house in order to sun himself. While I was away the weather warmed up and Rupert suddenly disappeared. Was he out chasing field mice (is that what strays do?)? Not only has Rupert disappeared but all the stray cats that used to roam the alley seem to also be gone. Did someone round them all up and escort them out of town (or worse)?

I miss Rupert.

After just over a month long stay in Edmonton I arrived back in Bruno on Wednesday. I managed to reschedule our health inspection for the day after I arrived (originally it had been set for February 13th). We passed with only a couple small recommendations: buy a thermometer for our fridge and shatterproof covers for the fluorescent lights. We'll get a certificate in the mail in the next week or so at which point we're free to open. I have to admit the months of delays have left me a little exhausted (our plan had been to open in December and now it's midway through March!!!) but this is good and I imagine we'll open our doors within the next two weeks.

I have unexpectedly found myself in Edmonton for an undetermined amount of time...I'll post again when I return to Bruno!

I bet you'll never see this at your local supermarket.

Both of my parents are from California and because of this, while growing up, mexican dishes were always in regular rotation. For me quesadillas/burritos are a dinner staple as much as pasta. I'll whip one up for lunch quicker than I would a sandwich. Where am I going with this?

Living in a small rural town has taken a lot of adjustment. One of the biggest adjustments (for me) revolves around grocery shopping. I've never been much of a cook, but in Vancouver it didn't matter since Amy's Kitchen was always there to save me. We used to live blocks from a large health food store. Organic fruits and vegetables were always plentiful and when I felt lazy there was always Annie's Mac and Cheese! No more! Imagine my horror when I discovered that I couldn't even buy refried beans locally. Tyler works in Saskatoon where one can easily find a large grocery store but after a ten hour shift with over an hour commute each way the last thing he's doing is grocery shopping. We make do with what's available in Bruno. I knew my days of snacking on Barbara's Jalapeno Cheese Puffs were over, but refried beans I could not live without. When the owner of one of the local grocery stores asked if I needed help finding anything I said I needed refried beans. After asking me what on earth I would use them for he went ahead and ordered some! I purchased my first can the other day.

I have a lot to learn here. The local grocery stores don't have a lot of produce to choose from. At first glance this might seem backwards to the casual observer but the reason behind it and the lack of a farmer's market in a farming community is that everyone in town has their own garden. From what I've heard people here usually have more vegetables than they know what to do with. After canning and/or freezing everyone's set for the winter. Tyler and I have our very own yard for the first time and this summer we'll be able to plant our first garden. Learning the art of canning might be next. I see a deep freeze in our future...

Refried beans - a prairie obscurity. Who knew?

The other morning we woke up to the sound of the motor that runs the fan on our furnace seizing...and then not working at all.


This is the second time that this has happened to us this winter. The first time it happened Tyler and I came home to the smell of burning plastic. We eventually realized the smell was caused by vinyl floor burning around a vent that was piping hot since the heat around it wasn't actually being circulated. We turned off the heat and called the local electrician. He installed a used motor which he thought was in good enough condition to last us the winter but said if anything goes wrong he would install a new one and not charge us any labour fee (we had requested he install a new motor). Well, it's -30 outside and we've once again had to turn off our heat and guess what? The Bruno electrician is on vacation in Hawaii. We made several frantic calls and found a place in Humboldt that had the right motor in stock. We assumed we would also have to get someone to drive in from there to install it. The first guy we talked to was snowed in, another wasn't able to come till next week. Finally we found out that there was a second electrician living in Bruno! He agreed to come over immediately and we were able to turn our heat back on by 3pm. Phew! At least the whole furnace didn't go (it is from 1959 after all).

We just received some beautiful prints and a book in the mail from Scott Malin. Thanks Scott! Scott is also a musician, you can check him out playing bass with Great Aunt Ida and The Secret Three, two great Canadian bands.

This is our temporary sign for the store. Eventually we'll make a much bigger one. We bought the wooden letters at a craft store. When Tyler first put it together the "Z" was missing so he made one out of styrofoam. The first time he put it up some of the letters quickly blew off . Somehow he managed to find them in the snow, in the dark. When he took it down to repair it the remaining letters fell off...except for the foam Z! Now he has the letters attached by both nails and glue. It's windy out here.

This new t-shirt design (available in our shop) references a sign in Bruno. The sign was one of the first things I noticed when we arrived here last May.

I would have posted this information sooner but I've been sick with some sort of crazy stomach flu. We've been approved! Finally! In the end all we had to do was hang a curtain separating our washroom from the rest of our house. A curtain! The floor plan says it was stamped on January 5th but we didn't get it until a few days ago. In the same envelope was my FoodSafe certificate for a course I took on the 17th. It says that it’s been approved "subject to letter". The letter states, "the four seats noted for waiting are not to be used for seating unless a public washroom is provided". Whatever! The next step is the actual inspection. Tyler wants to refinish the floors first; hopefully he can get it done quickly.

Rupert and I had a stare down the other day.

We're still waiting to hear from the Saskatoon Health Region. In the meantime I've taken a part time job in Bruno helping cast railway model kits out of resin for the good folks at Pacific Mountain Scale Shops. I have never worked with resin before. I steered clear of the sculpture department at Emily Carr when I was in school. This will be an interesting learning experience (hopefully I can keep up). Check out the cute little port-a-potties in the top photo!