Red Canoe Cafe Spring 2010

The Red Canoe Cafe is ten years old this spring...from our beginnings as a lunch and dessert cafe in the front room of the main house to this licenced cafe with a bright sunporch and a patio and a menu built on organic and local food we mostly raise and grow ourselves on our farm.
No wonder I feel exhausted!!!!!

We had a lovely month in Merida Mexico during winter and then came back to the farm to get ready for an even busier spring. We now have four breeding sows and a purebred boar and are hoping to have about seventy piglets over this next year. All but one of our ewes have lambed and we have 25 lambs and sadly lost six in various flukey mishaps. Our chicks seem to be doing well and will be ready for early July. Hens are laying, ducks are quacking and now we have three geese sitting on eggs and hissing viciously when I try to give them corn and water so they don't starve to death.

We are re-opening the cafe in between all this agricultural hooptedoodle and Tom has finished roto tilling the garden both at the main building and down at the suites. We had our first guests last night and another couple tonight. I've cleaned the three main rooms and rearranged the gift shop and am about to tackle the downstairs gallery. New paintings to hang, new jewellery to display.

Planning an increasingly local menu for this summer with Feast of the Farm being a major project as last year people really enjoyed the fresh food and organic meat. I think it's going to be a busy summer as the trend toward healthier eating is definitely growing in leaps and bounds.

And it's going to be a somewhat bittersweet summer as it may very well be our final one as restaurateurs in this lovely little village. After much consideration and debate, we have decided to list the business for sale as it is becoming clear that no two sane human beings can continue trying to run a restaurant and a farm which are a 45 minute drive apart and also both require most attention at exactly the same busy spring and summer seasons.

We've had a lot of good times running this place...worked with some incredible staff...met fabulous people and made countless friends. As part of having a cafe business, we've hosted poetry readings, philosopher's cafes, gallery openings, book launches, scrabble tournaments, songwriter evenings, wedding rehearsal dinners, family reunions, dance exhibitions and gatherings of all sorts. Musicians and performers from all across Canada have graced our little cafe. We published a newspaper, did dinner theatre and are in the seventh year of a week long Film Festival which had premiered major Canadian films! It has not been a dull life but it has been a very busy one and I am hoping that we will find new owners who are keen to add their own inspirations.

So on that note, we prepare for a busy summer and look forward to whatever the future holds.