Tisdale Friday, September 6, 2002

FTLComm - Tisdale - Saturday, September 7, 2002

The plan was to have this page of pictures yesterday but alas I simply ran out of time and you will have to make do with today. Though there has been little actual volume of rain over this past week we have had cloudy skies and the odd light shower which has stopped harvest dead in its tracks and the fields and gardens look like May. Valley Fuel and Fertilizer's refit is moving right along with six tanks now standing in within the barrier as work progresses on this major overhaul of the facility.

Above, Nuform Packaging has the wood frame structure up on the new concrete pad of the expansion to their building as they get ready to increase their capacity by more than 300%. The streets of Tisdale were filled with traffic and shoppers Friday morning as I munched on my "Bee Sting" and thought you might enjoy the simple and inexpensive pleasure of window shopping. So with camera in hand and grey skies above, providing a good deal of reflection I set about capturing some scnes that looked interesting. This Tasmanian Devil is more than three feet tall as he glowers out into the town.

Merchants put a lot of creativity into these displays and are almost always rewarded for their work as their wares are shown off and I have noticed that the active trade in town lately has made these displays change very quickly. Tisdale's main street now has only two vacant store fronts, down from six this spring and one of those is the building vacated by Inchworm when they moved to their new building. A plumber will soon be opening his storefront operation and it looks like a furniture merchant will open across the street from Martin's.

The growth of business in Tisdale is in marked constrast with other prairie communities as the drought and poor commodity prices have cut deep into every town and city in the province. Tisdale is not immune to this economic reversal but its diversified economy and innovative new businesses are bucking a tough trend. Timothy W. Shire