Did I mention Susanna has a love for exotic birds? She's also experienced in the art of taxerdermy and in the next room we got to appreciate both.

Susanna had antiques and collectibles of all kinds in every nook and cranny.

The next portion of our tour included a demonstration on how to make butter!!

The next room was pretty much empty, save for the life sized papier maché mannequin sporting an outfit that looked to me from the 1980's. There were a few old pictures on the wall and a vase full of peacock feathers. Susanna had given home to many an exotic bird during her life, including a peacock. She had saved all the feathers and had them incorporated into various displays. She had also "preserved" some of her other birds, you'll meet them later.

The next display was what Susanna called her "Taj Mahal". She had used one wall to create a castle-like facade using small stones she had found. A small wooden door opened to display a fake fireplace. Red curogated cardboard made up the the roofs of the towers on either side of the door, a detail Susanna herself pointed out (she takes great pride in her resourcefullness). Inside the towers were displays of old bottles, mainly old liquor bottles. Also on display was a collection of large ceramic jugs. The mosaic of rocks spanned over to the neighboring left wall.

I think I'll begin with the museum portion of Susanna's home, which was spread throughout several rooms in her basement. One of the first "exhibits" is a facade of an old pioneer house with antique tools and other odds and ends hanging or otherwise displayed in front of it. Don't mind the extension cord, she said it's not usually there.

I've been meaning to post about Susanna Bauer for a while now. I felt totally overwhemed with the task of editing down the over 150 photos I took while visiting her home in Middle Lake. Where do I even begin? We met when her grandson called us before our shop was open and said that his grandmother had read about what we were doing (in the Humboldt journal) and wanted to meet us. We invited them both over. Susanna is in her 90s and has used her home as a museum/gallery for many years. She's also an artist and works in various mediums. About a month or so after our first meeting we drove out to Middle Lake to see her home and couldn't believe our eyes once we were inside. In order to properly explain it all I'm going to have to post several entries...

Items from local artists are slowly making their way to the shop.
So far we have:

-thirty-one, a chapbook of poetry by Ryan Land
-cherry magnets (Bruno is home to The Cherry Festival, after all) designed by Marcel Prefontaine and cast by Pacific Mountain Scale Shop.
-pottery by Bergit Pulvermacher

We received more mail yesterday. There was a package full of earrings made by Amy Meyers, who I grew up with in Lethbridge, Alberta and who's currently getting her MA in choreography at Laban in London, England. There was also a parcel from Meesoo Lee, an artist living in Vancouver. Inside were buttons made from used scratch and win tickets as well as everlasting scratch and win bookmarks (I don't know if you can tell in the photo but the bookmarks are laminated tickets which haven't been scratched). Thanks guys!

With so many great items arriving my next goal is to create an online store.

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.