Tucked away in the east end of Brandon, a yard chock full of relics from days gone by is scattered in front of a building that looks more than a century old. On an autumn day in the Wheat City, evening sunlight dances over the antiques piled out front. Inside Crow’s General Store, the 82-year-old owner greets customers with a smile while serving ice cream. “Just a little bit of everything,” Don Ditchfield said. “Everything here is made out of junk.” Ditchfield, nicknamed “the Crow,” has operated the store since 2008. He built it from the ground up as a retirement project, on a site where there was nothing before. He sells ice cream and homemade milkshakes all year round. But his real passion is the antiques and curiosities he has collected over the years. “Sleep all day and steal all night,” Ditchfield said as he laughed. “No, auction sales and garage sales. I have a lot of stuff, and I just wanted to do something different.” To the left of the property, Ditchfield points out rows of bench seating set against a backdrop of parts from an old church organ. A wedding chapel is maintained on site. In the backyard, he has built and expanded a mini-golf course lined with old farming equipment. A threshing machine, a tractor and old machine wheels decorate many of the holes. Beyond that, Ditchfield maintains a couple of kilometres of walking trails. He is known for taking on large restoration projects, fixing up old equipment. He is currently restoring what he believes is a century-old windmill saved from a farmer’s property. “We took the windmill down and two weeks later the barn collapsed,” Ditchfield said. “You have to be willing to make parts and think outside the box cause a lot of this stuff, you can’t buy stuff for,” said Brandon resident Phoenix Thiffeault. Thiffeault met Ditchfield six years ago, when he took an interest in some of the gear the owner had collected. “There was an old Maytag engine that I wanted to buy from 1927, so I came here, knocked on his door, tried buying it from him,” Thiffeault said. “Well, he wouldn’t sell me the thing and then he roped me in here, now I’m stuck fixing all his stuff.” Last year, he helped Ditchfield restore a large neon sign that once stood near Danceland in the Wasagaming townsite. “It’s pretty cool, you got to be careful with it cause the voltage is so high, it can bite you,” Thiffeault said. “It’s very gratifying when you bring something back from the dead.” Ditchfield said preserving the past is gratifying, and his customers appreciate his simple approach to business. He is on his fifth guest book, with signatures from near and far. “It’s just a nice, relaxing place that you can get away from modern times,” Thiffeault said. “It takes them back in time,” Ditchfield said. “I tell them hard work never hurt anybody.”
