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

July-September....Summer Labour of Love

Our summer has just flown by us, and oh the activities we've been up to...follow as I take you through our summer of love...

We finally got our signs changed! This picture shows Glenn and Joe Braniff putting up our newly designed signs. Piapot Guesthouse and Saloon...we commissioned an art student from Calgary to design it for us, and we love it! Both sides are up, and have put that wonderful finishing touch to the outside of our building.

We had a huge crowd in for the Piapot Slow-pitch Tournament in July! It was a great turn out, and an unbelievable time! Glenn and I were run off our feet on Friday night, not expecting the masses so soon (only 2 games that night). We hired more staff for the Saturday and kicked butt! It was a real blast, and had a total night club feel to it. We were so busy that we didn't get any pictures of it all. It is by far the best weekend of the year to date! Thanks to all the ball players who made it a weekend to remember!

As some of you know, I have had previous experience living in small town Saskatchewan. Back in 1990-1992 I attended Briercrest College in Caronport, SK. I was friends with a Rosthern, SK girl named Nancy Heppner. We just reconnected because she heard I was moving to Sask. She has become the Minister of the Environment here in Saskatchewan, and is hob-nobbing with all the big wigs in governement. She recently came to visit us here, bringing The Honorable Wayne Eldard our Swift Current MLA. They stopped by for a quick visit after meeting with our Rural Municipality. It was an honor to have them here, and nice to reconnect with Nancy!

Must get back to work, more summer blog catch-up soon.

Cheers, Nicole.

Those with a weak stomach....be warned!

So, we're trying to make some progress in our little bar on the prairies by coming up with interesting tourist-drawing gimmicks. One that we have had on our mind for some time is "The Piapot Six Shot" It consists of 5 shots of Rye and water...with a mysterious 6th shot which we had yet to discover. One day we were talking about that 6th shot, and we came up with a little something that would draw the good, the bad and the down right brave! A prairie oyster! (for those who don't know what this is...it consists of the remains of a calf's castration lovingly prepared for the enjoyment of unsuspecting folks) Well, we had only one issue...where do you get THAT many calf-nuts? Lucky for us, Joe Braniff went to a branding this morning and showed up with a grocery bag plum FULL...of castrated calf testes! Garth Noble gave me a quick lesson on removing the teste from the sack, and I was on my way! The picture to the left is my display of calf-art...the complete set we were given. Glenn was very proud, and just a tad disturbed, that I did this for us! Thanks Joe and Murray (from Calgary) who provided such entertainment for me this afternoon. That's me and Joe with the prairie delicacy!

Now for some sweet and innocent news! On a recent trip out to Garth Noble's ranch one evening, we ran across his litter of 8 week old greyhound pups. Glenn and I were both instantly drawn to them...and then Garth told us to pick one out and take them home. We thought about if for a nano-second, and then picked a sweet little girl with white on her chest, paws, nose and the tip of her tail. We have named her Janey, and she is quite the little ankle biter. She is really easy to train so far, and we just love her! Thanks for reading...more wild and wacky news from Piapot to come...Cheers. Nicole

The Nature Tour

It was a slow Sunday in Piapot and we decided to shut it down early for the first time in three weeks and take another little tour of the Saskatchewan Soutwest. The sun was still high in the sky and it was clear with some good cloud formations which make for the best sunsets when the time comes.

We headed east and started in Gull lake with some shots of the old grain elevator. Then we checked out the town hoping to have a beer at the hotel but the bar was closed. Onward bound and heading south we traveled towards the windmills where we were also met with tons of oil drilling. This part of the country has an amazing wealth of untapped natural resources available and it is perfectly evident when you can see bio-diesel (wheat and other crops), windmills and oil rigs all in one picture and then you have the potash that is under the ground. The sun continued it's course and so much more elaborate than my imagination could have envisioned we were greeted with breath taking views in every direction. On top of the stunning sunset, an abundance of wildlife was waiting for us to spend time with them including baby antelope and dear, badger, beaver or muskrat and 3 giant horned owls which even stayed long enough for Nicole to drive across the field, get my camera bag out of the trunk and pass me a longer focal length lens. Being primarily a fashion photographer has it's disadvantages when shooting wildlife since I typically shoot with prime lens with wide apertures when I need to zoom in or out I do so with my feet. It has always been an advantage for me as it inhibits any laziness which I found came when shooting with a zoom lens. Anyways, it sure sucks when you have a wide lens on the camera and you need to capture a beautiful shot of some wildlife several hundred yards away. That's why when shooting events I carry two cameras!!! So first is the wide angle shot of the house which is easily one of my favorite shots of late. Then below is one of the owls that was living in this who came out and perched on the roof edge like a.... well like a picture darn-it!!!






On the way back across the grid roads, we stopped in Carmichael and captured another breathtaking Saskatchewan scene with the last of the sunlight lighting up the train cars and clouds I feel like heaven it always right outside my door.... It's just a matter of taking some time to get the most of simplicity and that is something that I will be doing for sure!!!

The Big Update

I won't be able to get all the details into one blog post but here is a nutshell of some of the events over the past few weeks....


The bar opened for a soft opening on May 23, 2008

The cooler compressor broke 2 hours after opening the doors... It is still not fixed because the repair guy has decided we are last priority. He also took the part with him so I couldn't go somewhere else. Two weeks is a really long time!!!

Nicole got on her first horse.... Inside the bar

The cops came in and took someone out...

Acres of Lions and Thesat, two bands from Victoria stopped in and partied for an afternoon

The national kids cancer ride tour chose Piapot as a stopping location and we hosted about 50 crew and athletes from 10:30pm to 5:30am. We were very tired but happy to have met so many fantastic people working so hard for a great cause. For more information check out the website www.nationalkidscancerride.com

Everyone had such a great time that they will be coming back to Piapot next year.


It has been a non stop adventure and there is always something eventful going on here in Piapot......

Capturing the Old West

Since I have been busting my ass for two solid weeks, when some of the required supplies were ordered but yet to be received, we chose to embark on new adventures instead of new projects. Everyone needs a little rest time and today everything is supposed to be in so we should be working hard again all weekend.

With the offering of some down time, we set off on a great gopher-shooting, pictures capturing day drive through the rolling hills that surround our new home. I have not even taken my camera out of the bag and only a few weeks before this whole hotel adventure I had purchased the Nikon 10.5mm lens but had yet to put it through a real workout and what could be better at trying out a lens with 180 degree field of view than the wide open prairie hills?

So we started to randomly drive through the back roads, and when the light caught my eye we would stop and snap a shot. I spotted an interesting group of trees and pulled into the field so I didn't have to walk as far to get to them. I had waved to a fellow walking back to an old truck as I was pulling up to the field and by the time I had stopped the car and was getting out of the vehicle, he had come up behind me. I walked on over to him and introduced myself as the new owner of the hotel and told him I was there to snap shots of the trees and maybe shoot a gopher or two. After some conversation I mentioned I was looking for some interesting, decrepit buildings he very kindly offered to take us to one of his favorites that was nearby.

First we followed Ray back to his place to drop off our car and join him in his truck. We restocked the beverages and headed out. It wasn't much more than a 15 minute drive to the old homestead which had been deserted for some time now but was once inhabited by a very wealthy rancher who had a fair number of ranch hands, or so it seemed by the number of buildings. The site itself is situated along side a gorgeous little creek and surrounded by mature trees. A delightful retirement location or a place to get away from it all. Certainly it won't be long before someone builds a mansion on the site.

Although much of the house had been destroyed by a combination of vandals and nature, you could see the evidence that it was once a luxurious home. Through the top window of the house, the bathtub still remains and the supply line which we guessed would have pumped water by way of a manual pump instead of having to manually carry water up the stairs as would have been the normal for the time (if you were lucky enough to have a 2-story)

Right along the creek line was a hobbit looking house which was likely used to store ice from the creek and possibly used as a cold storage for food as well since it was built right into the ground. Ray had told us that his daughter had her grad pictures done here and that was why he thought of it when we mentioned taking pictures. He invited us back to his place so we could see some of the pictures from the grad and compare how the place looks in the full greenery of summer. On the way back to the truck I snapped my fav shot (and Nicole's too) of a decrepit wagon. I hear the motto "Wagon's west!!! - ahh screw it, let's stay here" in my head whenever I see this picture :)

Thanks Ray, for a great afternoon. We really enjoyed the company and look forward to chatting some more in the bar real soon....

The bathroom terror

As most know, I am fairly confident with new tasks but this whole reno thing is unchartered territory for me. On top of every single thing that I try being completely new, there is no one around that I know well enough to invite over for a little assistance or guidance. That's what friends are for and I usually trade computer help for assistance with plumbing, electrical, mechanical etc where I am a little more timid. Well for the most part, trading computer work with people that are knowledgeable in the areas I lack is non existent because many do not even have a computer or it may be something that is there if one is forced to write an email.... Anyways, I digress. The point is that most of these stories cover the process of an over haul that is incredibly daunting for me and while many would scoff at the accomplishment, I am proud of each completed project even with any flaws or defect. Most are done with inaduequate tools and only the guesstimate of how things are done. This is especially true for the finer arts of home reno like the finishing touches. I am great at the dismantling, the measuring and cutting of the raw materials but the most improvement has been required and being noticed in the finishing touches.

Well with this bathroom, I did fantastic at removing the damaged dry wall and cutting new peices in but it took me a few tries to master the drywall tape zen. I kept getting bubbles in the tape. If anyone knows the secret in a nutshell, don't bother telling me now because it will make me mad ;) I finally got it pretty smooth and I am going to slap a layer of primer up on it (Actually Nicole has been doing an amazing job at the painting so when I say I, I likely mean Nicole) and then I will be able to determine how much more drywall effort should be spent on the wall. If all goes well I am hoping I can avoid anymore all together because it is messy and an annoying task.

Then we come to the tiles.... I did great at the layout and spacing but I didn't do amazing the first time around at getting the last of the lino backing off the flooring. Luckily I had no idea how I would do so I bought a whole bunch of extra tile to make up for my mistakes. So the adhesive wasn't as forgiving as I had originally imagined but live and learn. I also think from reading the tile package (who knew good instructions would be right on the pack) that I may be providing too much pressure downward when installing them. Maybe they are supposed to sit sort of on top of the adhesive but for now they are looking really good and as soon as someone in town gets a sponged and some type of grouting tool to wedge the grout into the cracks I will give that a go. For now things are coming along, and once we get some paint on the walls I will be able to install the toilet and the vanity and everything will really start to pull together. For now I feel like this has been the never ending project but I guess it is coming along and it is looking good.

Numerous other improvements over the last little while include:

• Nicole's amazing wallpaper border removal
  
• Nicole's amazing job of painting the hallway
• Re-tile the walk-in cooler with commercial tiles
• Install 4 of 6 toilets
• Clean, Clean, Clean

More to come soon......