Bruse Flea Market attracts lovers of farmhouse decor, nostalgia

HORACE, N.D. — One weekend a year, Connie Bruse converts her farmstead to a flea market.

"My junk is the next person's treasure," Bruse said. "So, anything rusty, anything galvanized, old stuff that we find at farms."

This year's flea market was held June 19 and 20. The 2021 flea market at the Bruse farmstead was the fourth annual. Along with vendors selling "rusty stuff, vintage, antiques, and other great finds," as a Facebook event described it, the flea market also featured food trucks.

About 30 vendors come to sell everything from antique glassware to old, rusted farm implements. Some people come for the nostalgia, while others are in search of "farmhouse chic" decor.

Bruse and her husband bought the former dairy farm near Horace about 30 years ago, and the buildings were full of old treasures. That started her on a career of selling antiques and farmhouse decor. Along with an annual flea market, Bruse has a shop on the farmstead called Inspired Designs, which is open weekends or by appointment.

Original farm items as well as items reimagined from old farm items lined tables and lawns throughout the farmyard. Long ago, these were functional pieces of farm life. But today, they're design elements.

"That farm look is really, really in," Bruse said. "They love chicken feeders and putting plants in oil cans and things like that. A lot of people thought that was going to go out really fast, and it's getting stronger every year."

Among the attendees at the event on June 19 was Dan Brossart, who farms the land he grew up on near Rugby, N.D. His kids raise chickens, so he picked up an old feeder for them.

"We grew up raising ducks and chickens, and this is the kind of stuff we had," he said. "So it brings back memories for me, and it will be great for my kids."

Rhonda Peterson paused at a round rusted item with a sort of snout-like appendage and pointed it out to her young granddaughter.

"To me, that looks like a little pig," she said.

For Peterson, of Fargo, N.D., the flea market brings back memories of her grandparents' farm. At the flea market, she was able to share those memories with her daughter and granddaughter.

"It makes you feel good, and to see things re-incorporated into new objects," she said. "So old items kind of reinvented is fun. So that's something that we could incorporate into our lives that would kind of share those memories."

For more information on Bruse's business, visit https://www.facebook.com/Inspired-Designs-by-Connie-Bruse-451747271838160 .