In between inshore fishing and getting married in 1982 ,we opened a little craft shop on Lincoln Street in Lunenburg because of a product I saw and wanted and being the tight wad I am ,decided to make my own "Kitchen Witch" from found fabric in the attic of the old home where we lived in Feltzen South .We ended up selling these to everyone we knew , I saw one just last Summer at a friend's house ,my it has done well for being so old, must have been a good product, it was great to see it and we were flooded back with those memories . So with these Kitchen Witch's we thought, why not open a little store, so off we go on our next adventure, " The Copper Doll House". Our rent was only $50.00 a month back then, in Lunenburg Nova Scotia (World Heritage site today), our shop was once the old coffin shop in the town, it was very long and narrow and was beside a Photographic shop,the well known "Knickles Studio" where the walls were covered with old Photos of Lunenburg Days gone by, wooden boats and iron men . We became good friends with the owner, he and his wife stood for us at our wedding. One morning we arrived for work to the sound of a power saw, the owner woke that morning and decided to take the wall out from between our shops to make almost a little strip mall type of thing, another time, Chuck , this gentleman and a furniture store owner from directly across the street were seen by a tourist in a motor home, the three of them, one head above the other with a BB gun aimed at the roof of the furniture store , getting ready to shoot at Pigeons who were trying to nest in his building, I often wondered what those poor Tourists thought and whether they kept going or stopped for a visit.
Oh, the fun we had back then, us being the youngest of that group of store owner's and us being the only craft shop in town . Chuck for a bit went back to Sea ,while I kept the Shop going.
On one occasion he arrived home late in the evening and then we were living in Martins Brook in a wonderful old Cape Cod house again on the Ocean outside of Lunenburg, this house was huge, much bigger then what we needed , so I had a side room full of these life size Characters ready for a show I was doing, Chuck got up in the middle of the night and went downstairs and started to shortcut through this room to the kitchen, well the scream I believe woke everyone in Blue Rocks on the other side of the Harbor, I'm glad he didn't have a gun for when he put the light on and wasn't expecting anyone in the room, and the room was full of these life size sculptures just hanging out, he at first glance thought the room was full of people.
We use to have a life size Fisherman Fred sitting outside our shop and if I had a penny for every time someone had their picture taken with Fred, we took Fred to a show we were doing once and while we were packing up someone stole Fred, the local cops were friends of ours and that was funny them calling all over and looking for Fred, when a radio call came in from one of the officers saying Fred was last seen being drug across the ball field , we never did see Fred again, I hope he had a good life.
We were living off the land big time back then and everyday was an adventure, we would take trips to Cross Island to sleep over in an old abandoned Island Homestead one of only two houses on the Island , one time we took friends and being young and not as on the ball as we might be today , here we are four people who all smoked back then, arrive on the Island to find candles waiting at the house for us to use and yes not one of us smokers thought to bring a lighter or match, rubbing two sticks together does not work, oh what a trip that was, and we all had cigarette's and no fire. And to top everything, no flashlight. Chuck wonders why I can't go overnight anywhere since then without everything but the kitchen sink with me.
I spoke briefly before about sleeping on a rock which jutted out into the ocean while we lived in Feltzen South , this rock we discovered was and still is a wonderful piece of History, all over this rock are carvings of tall ship drawings and names and dates of what we assume were lovers who spent many long leisurely hours lounging on the edge of the water looking out unto to Lunenburg harbor watching the ships sail in and out. There was a deep crack in the rock and at one end we would have our fire and we actually slept in this crack, I would love to see if we both would fit in that crack today. We would wake in the morning with wet sleeping bags from the ocean and dew and maybe this is why our arthritis is bad today, one does learn the hard way, but my it was fun .
One evening we had friends over for a mug up on our rock, we were roasting chicken, all of a sudden we saw flashlights coming across the waters edge which was very rocky, when we stood to look we heard voices telling us to drop everything, it was the Fisheries Officers who saw our bonfire from across the harbor in Lunenburg and they thought maybe we were poaching Lobster which was out of season, well after they saw our chicken and we all had a good laugh, we all became friend's and added them to our mix of interesting people we knew and years later Chuck ended up working with some of these men.
We didn't have running water or electricity in Feltzen South , we did have a phone and one day it rang and Chuck's ex wife said she was sending their oldest daughter to Lunenburg to live with us, fine we said but we did have to tell her not to bother bringing anything electrical that needed to be plugged in , thinking really that she may change her mind, she arrived with a suitcase full of everything electrical.
We had to teach her all about getting water from the well , getting heat from putting wood in the stove, my if I had pictures of how small and thick the ice hole was in that well that one winter , we kept an axe near the well for chopping through the ice to get the bucket in for water, we had of course no refrigeration and used what we called a cold cupboard in the house or the well . I would make powered milk and was always telling Chuck and Michele ,me being the nag Mother of the house to put the lid back on the milk pitcher, OK now get ready for this one, Chuck one morning came down from our above the kitchen bedroom loft area and I heard him gag, he went to take a drink from the container I might add and to his surprise there was a dead mouse floating just inches from his nose, have I mentioned learning lessons the hard way?
We once went sledding with friends and told Michele to put wood in the fire and check a very large crock of homemade beans that were in the oven of the wood stove while we were gone, we arrived back to burnt beans and smoke in the kitchen so thick Michele had to keep her head low so she could continue reading her book, did I mention that back then, not so today, Michele was very much a city girl, and just overlooked the fact the beans were burnt and the fire was going out, she scrubbed that crock for weeks finally we planted something in it.
We were doing silk screening back then ,still do ,we bought 100 cheap white t shirts from a gentleman , we had plans to dye the t shirts green and silk screen "Mash" on them, now remember all we have is kerosene lamps and a wood stove. It was getting dark this evening we were dyeing these shirts when company came by, everyone loved to visit us there, always something going on down by the sea, well this couple helped us dye those shirts that evening and after much evening joy juice ,jugs of "Golden Glow" , we all woke the next morning with 100 green dyed t shirts hanging from the kitchen beams and we were green for weeks. I wish I would have kept one of those shirts , we did for sometime but you know how it is.
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