A Summary of Seven Months

The benefits of living in a rural area are much harder to quantify but I can say with utmost certainty the my quality of life has gone up substantially from when I "fought the daily grind" in the city. People are trustworthy and want to help you in anyway they can. I am still getting used to that concept of actually pushing to assist people to make their lives better. My "salary" may have gone down probably because i don't need much so i never pay myself out of the company but I am able to have more spending money than ever. Just imagine not spending money on work clothes, parking, lunches downtown and not wasting time commuting, sitting in traffic and waiting in lines. A 2 person deep line is long now. I used to only bank on the internet but now I phone or go into the branch where I am looked after promptly (quicker than I could use an ATM). In fact, i don't even know my PIN number for the ATM card because banking is so simple here. There are hundreds of examples in how I enjoy life out here better. I am not missing anything (Medicine Hat is an hour away and Calgary only 4 hours) but have gained so much in quality of life and the ability to enjoy each day.

The bar itself is rocking and has turned out to be a little party oasis in the middle of the soft rolling hills. The hotel has a bed and breakfast feel to it and we have received an amazing response to the extent that we received Christmas greetings from many of the hotel's guest from the past seven months from all over the country and I have been able to pursue a new avenue of photography with the beautiful landscapes around here. Having the bar (and opening soon a gift shop) has allowed me to display photos and open a new revenue stream selling my artwork. My photography can be viewed at www.penguinfoto.com

Thanks to everyone who has helped make this place a success. Without all of our amazing patrons and awesome staff who keep this place a fun and exciting environment we would be no where.

Enjoy some of the random moments from the bar.....

THANK YOU!!!!

Pheasant fantastic

A quick little post from the phone after a fantastic meal consisting of our pheasant from a week ago. We learned from the grouse experience to ensure to tenderise the bird prior to cooking.

So our recipe for pheasant t is as follows


Simmer the breasted bird in lemon and honey watee i simmered like this dor about 20 minites

Next i sliced the breasts lenght wise and then wrapped bacon slices through it. in a corning ware dish I placed some olive oil in the bottom and placed the breasts in the dish. I covered the meat with some mushroom soup mix and baked at 325 degrees for another 25 minutes and voilà!!!


-- Post From My iPhonei

The White Tailed Experience

As I mentioned in my last post, I had planned on going white tail hunting. I really didn't know what i would be using for a gun and at the last second, the right one fell into my lap. Being a purist, i thought i would give my first hunting experience a shot in the old cowboy way. The gun I was using was an octagon barreled Marlin model 94 in a 38-40 caliber. Built from 1903 it really was something straight out of an old movie. Since the caliber of ammunition is difficult to find, I only had 20 shells with which to down my deer.

I had been chasing a fairly good sized buck since Monday afternoon and had taken a few shots at him but missed. First thing in the morning a curious buck had walked almost right to me but i decided to pass as he was quite small. The bigger one I had been chasing was still fairly calm when i spotted him just out of reach and across a creek. I took one shot but just scared him and then I lost sight of him. i walked and walked hoping to flush him out of the bramble he was hiding in to try to get a better shot but with no luck. As the sun came out in full force I decided to give him some time to calm down and wait until the evening and hopefully get a better shot at him. The evening came and I couldn't find him this time. In fact I didn't see any bucks until the last 10 minutes of light when i spotted 2 bucks and 3 does.

Now at 100 yards, around 1/3 of the animal was covered by the sight bead so I knew I was aiming at the body of the animal but couldn't say exactly where it was going to go. I fired one miss shot and then the second shell went through the upper rib cage but was not a kill shot. Another miss and then I hit the front leg. The buck wasn't going anywhere now but continued to stand, humped up but would not go down. Another shot came across the top of the deer breaking the spine and finally he went down but was still alive when we got up to him so a final kill shot was required into the heart from close range.

Joe helped me with whole cleaning, cutting, skinning process and I am still not sure if I could get it all done on my own without an instruction sheet next time but I have a pretty good idea of what to do. While cleaning, we recovered some of the lead I had used and I dropped that off with the head to the taxidermy for a horn mount. I am not going to mount the whole head until I get a trophy size one but I am proud of the buck I got. Although not the hugest buck, a good three pointer, he has an unusual and unique antler arrangement which has an extra tine off of the one side.

The meat is at the butcher and I am excited to get it back and really try out my self providing/living off the land skills :)

From Field To Feast!!!

Well, i went out and bought a hunting license. While I was in there buying one for a white-tail deer I also bought one for birds. Now I am ready to go and today, being remembrance day, we had closed the bar and decided to take a nice drive through the country side looking for upland game birds. While I carried the 12-gauge shotgun, Nicole manned the camera and got this great shot ( in my opinion) of me. I was watching for those little heads to pop up from the long grass. We had seen a few as we drove on the wagon trail and when we got out to follow chase we were greeted by a nice big white tail buck. Sally, our lab X sharpei decided to chase the deer instead of looking to flush out birds. In the end we had to flush them out ourselves usually by driving but we did get a nice walk in too.

We were on our way back to the hotel when one flew from one fence post to the other side of the truck. I quickly got out and retrieved the gun from behind the seat, popped in one shell, cocked and aimed the gun and BANG!!! One shot wonder, the sharp-tailed grouse fell from the fence post. Here is a shot of me with a goofy smile, once we got back to the hotel with our catch.

Quickly we researched how to clean a bird and came up with a few unhelpful videos. One video the thing is gutted prior to the lesson!!! How can we learn from that? So there we sat, staring at our bird and deciding exactly which method we should try.

Well , our super employee had told me that you step on the wings and pull on the feet and... voila!!! You know what? It worked like magic. Feathers and skin of, guts and head pull through the body and you are left with the breast meat attached to the wings. Break off the wings and slice the breast meat away from the rib cage. Since I was so enthralled with Nicole yanking the feet off this bird I didn't take pictures the first time... Ooops! We do have this lovely shot of the grouse breast once it was removed from the rib cage.

We were so excited that everything worked out and we could figure how to clean the bird that we decided to use the last hour of sunlight and see if we couldn't get one or two more.

Off home. We arrive and get out of the truck, walk ten paces and I see a pheasant cock about 30 paces away. By the time I get a shell intwe go again, this time leaving the the dogs ato the chamber, he had flown another ten paces away but I line him up and like the pro I am, one shot
again and the pheasant is down. A short struggle and it's quiet. Well this time I am sure to have a shot of Nicole pulling the legs off the bird and here she is, no fear, not squeamish at all. Gosh I am proud of my girl. Then we cooked it up.

I gave the cooking advice and I guess I was wrong because it was quite tough. The taste was delicious so I am wondering if I would have cooked it on the rib cage if it would have been a little more tender. I guess this is where years of experimenting will come in so I am off to a good start now. I was worried that I wouldn't like the taste of the meat if it was too "gamey" but it really was some tasty eats.

New clothing has arrived

After a long wait we have received our Xmas shipment of tshirts and booty shorts as well as a restock in the Roper shirts.

Everything looks awesome and we have all sizes right now so get in and get yours. We take mail orders as well so give us a call and we will get some out to you in time for Xmas.


we still gave the other styles on stock too so we can be your one stop shopping for gifts. New styles of postcards are coming over the next few weeks so make sure to pop by!!!

The new house

Here are some pics from the new house because I really needed more projects. Overall it is coming along quick and looking really good inside

The Barrier Wall

Built to keep the wildlife in and as the entrance way to our new gift shop!!!


Ok now it seems like I have a way to edit and add posts from my phone. This will hopefully allow me to keep on top of the blogging a little better

The Wall In Construction

Here is the first bit of construction for our gift shop area which will also give me a private office area as well as some space to hang more pictures