MACDOWALL, Sask. – The day the kids went back to school last August, Gail Lucyshyn and Darlene Rowden went to work pouring concrete.
For two months, they became intimately acquainted with a cement mixer, spending most of their days and nights up to their elbows in sand, gravel, cement and water.
“Not much sleep, lots of muscles,” Rowden said.
By the end of October, the women were done, but they had no readily visible construction project to show for it. Instead, 400 decorated stepping stones were stacked in sheds across Lucyshyn’s farmyard.
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It was the first step in a dream that germinated a few months earlier when Rowden and Lucyshyn, friends since Grade 8 and now both farmers and mothers, decided to go into the stepping stone business.
They began the project with a whirlwind of activity from July to October and to some extent it is still only half formed. They have an inventory and a name, Hilltop Stepping Stones, but haven’t officially incorporated, haven’t opened a company bank account and have only a vague notion of marketing.
“We just kind of knew what we wanted to do, where we wanted to market them, at sales, and we just have been doing it,” Rowden said.
The idea grew out of personal interest.
“We both have stepping stones,” Lucyshyn said. “And we both wanted more,” Rowden added. “And we kind of decided, ‘let’s try making them ourselves.’ “
The women weren’t completely new to the business. Both of their husbands have cement mixers and Lucyshyn had built a cobblestone sidewalk on her farm last year. As well, Lucyshyn’s father is a concrete finisher and has provided advice.
“He’s come out and told me what I was doing wrong,” Lucyshyn said with a laugh.
A greenhouse operator in nearby Rosthern, Sask., who used to make and sell stepping stones, helped by detailing supplies Rowden and Lucyshyn would need, such as dyes to colour the stones and fibre mesh to strengthen the concrete.
She also showed Rowden and Lucyshyn how to order plastic moulds through the internet. They bought moulds and by the end of August were ready to go to work.
“When the kids went back to school, at the very, very end of August, we went to Saskatoon and bought the rest of the stuff that we needed,” Rowden said.
“And the next day we poured,” Lucyshyn added.
The concrete needed to dry for 24 hours before it could be removed from the moulds, which meant they were able to pour 11 moulds a day. Because the new stepping stones needed to cure for seven days before they could be painted, the first week’s workload wasn’t too onerous.
But once the first stones were ready to paint, the work picked up, with the partners pouring during the day and painting at night after their children went to bed.
It was hard work, considering the size of the bigger stones, which they estimate range from 20 to 27 kilograms.
“We couldn’t carry two at a time, I know that,” Rowden said.
The hectic pace continued until late October, when it became too cold to use the garden hose to wash out the cement mixer. By that time, 400 stones were ready for market.
They attended their first craft sale in Saskatoon in October and were disappointed. They loaded up a truck with stones, and sold only 13.
However, they were glad for the experience and the advice they received from other exhibitors.
From there, they went to three other Saskatchewan sales in Prince Albert, Shellbrook, where they sold 30, and Macdowall.
Combined with stones they have sold to customers who drop by Lucyshyn’s farm, the partners estimated that by early December they had sold between 75 and 100 stones.
During the winter they plan to organize the shop, buy more moulds and figure out a marketing strategy. They’re hoping the spring and summer craft sales will be more successful, but are also kicking around the idea of asking greenhouses to sell their stones.
“We have kids, we have farms that we still work on, and to get out to every single sale is almost impossible for us, so it would be nice to be able to get sales through other outlets, rather than us carrying them all to all these various sales,” Rowden said.
Unanswered questions hang over the business, such as whether greenhouses will be interested in buying from a local supplier.
Rowden and Lucyshyn also don’t know how they would meet their family, farm and other commitments if the business grows into a full-time job.
Rowden and her husband Richard Wilson raise registered polled Herefords and Hereford-Angus crosses and have three children aged six to 11.
Lucyshyn and husband Mike raise Hereford-Angus cross cattle and their children are four and seven.
Rowden said this fall was OK because her farm’s cattle were still on pasture, but she’s not sure what will happen in the spring when the breeding program is in full swing.
“I’ll have to juggle, I guess.”
