Now I Really Feel Bad....

After not posting here for awhile, I just posted that last article about my life as a shopkeeper.  After posting, I looked at the blog stats and saw that nearly 1200 people viewed the blog last month, and it makes me think I am doing them (you?) a disservice by not writing more about METAMORA!

We just finished the Canal Days weekend a week ago.  The number of vendors was down, but it seemed the number of visitors was as good or better than past years.  During last year's Canal Days, Sunday was a total washout with heavy rain and flooded vendor spots- some even lost some product to the wet.  We think that probably kept many of them away this year, since rain was again forecast (though fortunately, mostly a no-show.)

The village is looking better this year, as several of the historic buildings have received facelifts or fresh paint- the Masonic Lodge, the Martindale Hotel, and the Jonathan Banes House to name a few.  The Thorpe House is in the middle of receiving a complete exterior paint job.

Several new shops this year, noteably the one named Mosaic, on Main Street in the building that once housed the Pizza place.  The have regional fine art, music instruments, provide music lessons on several instruments including fiddle, dulcimer and guitar, and serve snacks to boot (to pay the rent?)  Holly and Rick Garrett run the place, and provide live entertainment on many weekends at their shop, as well as weekend evening comedy and music shows.

The Cat and Fiddle, run by the charismatic Catrina Campbell, has moved her facility into two locations- her bed-N-breakfast into the former Whitewater Inn in Duck Creek Crossing in the west end of the village, and her music venue and gift shop into the old Blacksmith Shop on Columbia Street (the main entrance road to the village.)  As she once did at the Thorpe House, she has thoroughly transformed the Blacksmith Shop interior appearance into a visually pleasing, comfortable dining and music venue.

Last weekend was the first of two for the "Haunted Village of Metamora", a guided evening tour of the village past/through spooky haunting vignettes in keeping with the Halloween season. This weekend is the final weekend for the event, Friday and Saturday, Oct 17/18, starting at 7:30 pm at the entrance to town.  Cost is $5 to benefit the advertising efforts of the Merchant Association.

Most shopkeepers are making plans for the upcoming Christmas Walk season, typically the most beautiful time of year in Metamora, with the canal lit by lanterns, shops open until 10 pm on Fridays and Saturday all decorated and lit in holiday beauty. (That is Thanksgiving weekend and the next three weekends following.)

My Life as a Shopkeeper in Metamora

It has been awhile since I wrote anything for this blog because life has been so busy for my bride and I.  But, as several people have told me recently that they liked the writing I put on here, I figured I'd better get off the dime and write something.

My wife, Brenda, and I live above our shop in "downtown" Metamora.  It's our home and our life, and we love it, but that doesn't mean everything is always perfect.  It is a very busy life with little time off.

We open our shop five days a week, year 'round.  Opening time used to be 10:00 am, but since it seemed we were always 2 or 3 minutes late opening, and not wanting to mislead potential customers about our opening time, we changed our official opening hour to 10:04 am.  We almost always make that on time.

The other two days of the week when we do not open the shop (Monday and Tuesday) were/are supposed to be "days off", equivalent to 'normal' peoples' weekends.  Yet, when you run your own business, and live upstairs in the same building, it seldom seems to be anything like "time off". 

In our case, I bake all the bread for our panini sandwiches. I have to make my own bread in order to serve the type of sandwich I want to serve, and I could find no bread at any store or bakery that worked the way I wanted it to.  So, for better or worse, I came up with my own recipe and that’s what we use.  And it doesn't bake itself.  So, frequently, the better part of one day a week is devoted to bread-baking- averaging about 30 loaves every two weeks in the summertime.

Fortunately or unfortunately, my caramel corn is a big popularity success.  But, it too does not make itself.  Since it takes an hour and a half to make one batch, and that batch produces 9 or 10 bags, frequently another day is used up in making caramel corn. 

Neither the bread-baking nor the carmel corn making can be done very easily during slow periods when the shop is open, because both operations take up a lot of space in the kitchen, which would then make it difficult to make our panini sandwiches when hungry customers come in and order food. 

Then there is the cheese slicing- 20 or 30 pounds a week of cheddar, swiss and provolone cheese logs must be sliced up and wrapped and labeled, then another half hour to get the slicer clean.

It takes hours of advance preparation for the various sandwich items on the menu.  Today it was roasting, cooling, then slicing and portioning out the eye round roasts for the Philly Cheesesteak grilled cheese panini.  Last week it was cooking up 10 pounds of ground angus and turning it into our Sloppy Joe panini filling.  Before that it was 20 pound pork butts- which I really enjoy, because I let 'em go all night in the oven 12-14 hours, then get up in the morning and the house smells wonderful! (Plus, I get to eat some of the profits by having fresh roasted pork for breakfast!)

Most of one day every week or every other week is a shopping trip.  With the restaurant supply house and other stores where we buy most of our food, its over a hundred mile round trip, and thus, a full day.

But we are not just about food here.  We also sell a lot of gourmet popping corn grown locally by my nephew.  But it comes in big bags from the farm, and we have to package it all.  Since I have established a reputation for having a lot of cool packages for the popcorn, like wine and liquor and beer and pop bottles, as well as plastic bottles and Ziploc bags, and more than a dozen varieties of popcorn, that's a lot of packing going on.

Evening and morning hours whether the shop is open or not are filled with little things that keep our business going or keep the IRS off our back- printing, bookkeeping, ordering supplies online with a not-very-good internet service, cleaning the store and equipment, making more refrigerator magnets (I've got more than 400 different designs) printing T-shirts, etc. etc.

Brenda keeps herself very busy too, what with making her bath and body and home fragrance products, preparing and cleaning the Banes Suite for the next guests to rent it, doing laundry and cleaning the house, and a trillion other things that need doing.

Being open five days a week, it takes one of us in the kitchen preparing the food and keeping the kitchen cleaned up while the other of us is out front jabberjawing with our guests and making the best cappuccino this side of the Atlantic.  I know she gets a little frustrated when I run out of the store because of a fire department emergency (I'm a volunteer fireman.)

And that all makes for a full life!  Even if you didn't take into account my playing guitar with our local bluegrass band, and serving on the local Sewer Board.

So, I'll try to write more about Metamora in the future.  It is a fascinating and beautiful village in  a gorgeous valley.  Just an hour ago, we were driving home from a Batesville grocery run and I was marveling at God's artistry in the beautiful colors of the fall foliage- the trees seemed aglow with every shade of orange yellow and red. Breathtaking! 

Shops open In Metamora

When I read a comment about Metamora not having many shops, I am puzzled. How many shops does a visitor want to visit?

In wanting to evaluate the comment, I reviewed what I know about open shops and made a list of them. This list does NOT COUNT some of the main attractions to town, such as the canal boat ride, the Grist Mill, the Whitewater Valley Railroad, and the horse and carriage ride.

Below is a list of most of the shops that I am aware of that are in business as of today, April 16, 2014. I know there are a few others, but I cannot name them. Read the list below- there are 38 of them listed here. (location numbers refer to the Metamora Map building number):

1. Woodworks Etc.
2. Country Peddlers
3. Buttons & Bows
4. Appreciative Treasures
5. Serendipity Frog
6. Cranberry Junction Gifts
7. Duck Creek Restaurant
8. Woodshack
9. (Ben's shop- map location 23a)
10. (The produce place- location 23b)
11. Unique Creations
12. Smelly Gourmet
13. Leather Hatchery
14. Mr. Ed's (new management)
15. (Bob's place- location 35)
16. Healing Cross of Metamora
17. Museum of Oddities
18. Auntiques & Uncle Junques
19. Words & Images
20. Train Place
21. Kaleidosaurus
22. Martha Jane's
23. Mr. Fudge's Confections
24. (Earl's place, next to Mr. Fudge)
25. The Shed (alley next to Mr. Fudge's)
26. Canal Shops
27. Meeting House Antiques
28. Sampler
29. Grannies Cookie Jars/Ice Cream (Guinness World Record)
30. Jackie B's
31. Kathy's Country Cooking
32. Gem Mine/Luina's Garden
33. Metamora Engraver
34. Salt Creek Antiques
35. Cat & Fiddle
36. The Basket Case
37. Patty's Quilt place (now in Duck Creek Crossing)
38. Amish Cheese Shop

Not all shops are open every day, and many of them are closed January through May, but most will be reopened soon.  A number of those listed are open currently, especially on weekends.

There are other shops in town that either say they will open/reopen this year that I did not count, such as Anne's, Jeannie's five shops on the east side of Columbia Street when you enter the village including the Comic Book Shop, local artist's museum, and other gift shops, and the former bakery/PJ's Quilts on Clayborn St.

For what its worth…