麻豆传媒AV

Well it looks like spring might push through. Neilburg Minor Hockey will be holding their annual minor hockey banquet April 15 in the Neilburg hall at 6 p.m. This event is open to community members.

Recently a community member went on a little adventure. Kevin Scoular recently returned home from a 45-day, five-country world tour. He joined a group of Australian teachers and toured through Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.

In Cambodia Scoular attended the Tuol Sleng Museum and the associated killing fields. He also ventured to the countryside and was treated to a rural village home stay with local Cambodians. Scoular and others cycled from Siem Reap to the famous Angkor Wat temples.

During his two-week stay in Singapore, Scoular joined two other Canadians to participate in a special consulting project at Singapore American School, a school with nearly 4000 expatriate students, making it the largest international school in the world.

Continuing the education theme, Scoular travelled to Costa Rica to teach, as a volunteer, English in a public school in San Pedro, a suburb of San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica. Scoular spent time with students in Grades 2 to 6. The teaching spanned one week, which left him time to visit locations such as Poas Volcano, La Paz waterfalls, Doka Coffee Estate and the beaches at Manuel Antonio.

Scoular also traveled to Playa Flamingo and spent four days with his aunt, Pearl More, who has been living and operating a business in Costa Rica since 1978. Unfortunately, just before Scoular left Costa Rica he was bit by a stray dog and had to go through a series of rabies shots over a two-week period after he got back to Canada.

Two local ladies are in the process of starting a new business in our community. Joanne Marshall and Andrea Herle are starting an Internet store called Simple Farmer operated out of Neilburg (www.simplefarmer.ca) They offer vintage inspired signs, refurbished antiques, unique accents, colour palettes, seasonal collections and also take orders for custom pieces. Their goal is to help their customers fill their homes with quality, one-of-a-kind pieces. They aim to merge the old with the new and blend modern design with vintage/ country pieces. I have always considered myself to be a creative thinker. Both ladies live on the farm and if I've learned two major lessons - keep it simple and humour is key to survival.

Joanne has always enjoyed working with furniture. She loves the old pieces and to feel the solid wood and know the quality and craftsmanship that went into building the pieces. Owning a dresser or desk from years ago is like owning a piece of history. Its quality is unmatched to the pieces you may seek today in box stores. Everything is particle board and glue these days, made by machines. There is just no comparison.

They blend their strengths and talents to make collections that suit a variety of settings. Joanne has a background in interior design and decorating. She makes the signs and looks after the furniture end.

Andrea's uses her background in fashion and vast knowledge of textiles to handle all of the fabric choices. Andreas' work adds some softness and much needed texture to each collection. Together they attended buying shows and pick new items to correspond with each collection. That's where the old blends together with the new for the perfect balance.

If you would like to check out the pieces they currently have you can find them on Facebook and Twitter.

The team is launching a spring collections in a "pop up ahop" April 19 in Marsden. If that is successful they would look to possibly do a few more down the road. This is a new company but they hope to expand the collections, add cottage and country home blueprints and soon launch some software they have been developing to assist farmers.