Rhode Island, 2009: Adrian's heightened phobia.

RHODE ISLAND

We are back home again after our nine day vacation to Rhode Island with Adrian. The trip went fairly well with only a couple of minor incidents from Adrian. The weather was fine. We were able to sit and relaxe on the beach for three or more days, and to have long walks along it. Only on the Friday did we have rain, and that was while we were on the catamaran ferry from New London, CT to Block Island. The rain had stopped by the time we got to the island.

Rhode Island is well worth going back to. We visited an aquarium at Mystic, Ct, a zoo at Providence, RI, took a harbour cruise at Newport, RI and the ferry to Block Island. The bull frog is one of the animals exhibited at the aquarium. The three happy folks on the ferry are Anne, Adrian and I. Its unusual to have us all in the same picture.

While waiting for the harbour tour we met up with a retired couple from our English home town! Its a small world.

ADRIAN'S PHOBIA

Anne and I are meeting with staff from Tamir tomorrow. (Tamir is the agency that looks after him.) Adrian exhibited an exacerbated fear of heights during our stay. He has been afraid of heights from his teens. During this trip he was even more fearful of going up and down the stairs to our second floor appartment at the resort we stayed at. He would cling to both sides of the stair well as he made his way down, and would stand facing the wall at the top of the stairs when he ascended. On one occasion he was sick to his stomach when he got to the top. The stair well, walls and railing were all grey. Perhaps he could not distinguish where each began and ended. We will ask for advice tomorrow.

The main purpose of the meeting is to review the program Tamir has with Adrian. This is an annual review of his POP (Personal Outcome Plan). We have been through this review process several times and are pleased with its purposes.

Ready to leave for Rhode Island

We are now ready to leave for our vacation with Adrian to Rhode Island. As you will notice, in preparation for the trip I put my etsy shop in vacation mode. Hence, nothing shows on this blog except a white space for that shop. That white space will remain until we return on May 31st.

The RI trip is one of many we have done through exchanging our Florida time-share weeks for other places. Last year we exchanged for two different places in England. The photo here shows one unit we received in exchange. The whole unit was probably twice the size of our home in Kanata, had three bathroom suites, three bedrooms, a sauna and a spectacular view of the resort's golf course. We were upgraded to that unit since the exchange people fouled up the original exchange we had planned on.

If the Rhode Osland exchange unit is half as luxurious, we will be very happy.

The Spring Garden, May 20th 2009

Just before we go on vacation to Rode Island, I have taken the risk of planting tomato and pepper plants in the garden before the traditional May 24th date. Weather forecasts for the next few days are good with no threats of frost. A good soak should enable them to survive transplant shock.

The honeysuckle by the front door is in bloom, heavy with blossom and buzzing with bees. Every year I cut down 1/3 of this bush to control its height and shape. It does well with this treatment.

The Irises are looking good this year as are the late tulips, the flowering crab and the groundcover.

Baskets photographed in our garden

Last week I asked for a "critique" of my etsy shop by other sellers on etsy. One suggestion was that I photograph my baskets in sunlight and show some pictures with "stuff "(a highly technical term) in them to show how baskets could be used. Here are some examples of my first foray into natural shots.

I retook photos for eight of my baskets. The task of doing this for all is somewhat intimidating. And, while I can add them to my etsy shop, they appear as the last of the photos in each particular set of five.

The "stuff" I placed in some baskets included several stems of rhubarb, branches of apple blossom, and an African Violet from inside the house.

This may be my last blog until June. Anne and I are taking Adrian on a holiday trip to Rhode Island, leaving on Friday. We will be back in Ottawa on the 31st.

Mini Coin Collection

Yesterday all three of my vintage coin selections in my etsy shop were sold! Even the commemorative dollar coins such as those issued in Red Lake for Gold Rush Days around 1980. Go figure.

I then checked to see if we have any other vintage coins. These were all I could find that might bring a buyer. This mini collection includes a packaged set of Britain's First Decimal Coins, a Crown (five shilling piece) to celebrate Queen Elizabeth and the Duke's Silver Wedding, with its plastic case, and an 1897 Victorian silver three-penny p1ece.

We do have some sets of quarters and dollar coins from Canada for 1992, 2000 and 2001. But I have to wait for a while before I can class them as Vintage Coins (25 years old or older.)

Anne has searched and found several vintage crochet hooks I will probably post tomorrow. She will not let me at other vintage items such as paintings that we have.

Chats bring sales

For the last few days I have discovered "Chat groups" on the main etsy website. Here you can promote your work to other buyers and sellers as well as view their work. Its an area where discussion ranges far and wide on a variety of topics all at the same time. In addition photos of the work of those in the group pass by, sometimes very quickly. Further, if you do not contribute to the discussion, instead, lurk, you are automatically kicked out of the site.

Discusions on problems of breast feeding, pet problems, PMS and husbands are some of the recent discussion threads I did not take part in.

This morning a person from Reading, England was on the chat I joined. I added the information that Anne and I spent our honeymoon on a canal boat on the canalised section of the Thames from London to Reading. The Reading person answered by offering to purchase both items shown here if I would make a deal. This I agreed to, and by noon Ottawa time, the items were sold via email communication. They are in the mail now, despite today's sermon on the history and present-day observances of the Sabbath.

The coins are a Commemorative "Crown" (five shilling piece) from the 1951 Festival of Britain and nine 1977 Silver Jubilee Crowns.

The name "TOFT".

This is the earliest photograph in our family that has me included. The photo is of a VE Day celebration by all the people that lived on Toll Street, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, England. Somewhere in this mass of people is one of my sisters holding me and my second sister holding my twin brother. My Grandmother lived on Toll Street which has since disappeared in slum clearances. (VE Day: Victory in Europe Day, celebrating the end of the war in Europe in 1945.)

The name "Toft" has two long, storied histories. As a name of Viking or Scandanavian origin, it apparently means town. Many people of Norwegian or Danish origin have the name Toft. The Eastern parts of England, those parts most often raided by the Vikings, have several towns that end in Toft, such as Lowestoft.

The second origin, and one from which my Toft line probably sprang, is as an old English term for the land that belonged to a serf. A "Maison" was land that belonged to the Lord of the Manor, the "Glebe" was the land that belonged to the church while the "Toft" was the serf's own land.

A "Toft" traditionally had specific dimensions. It was a chain (22yards wide) and a furlong long (220yards). A chain was the distance from front to back of a chain (team) of oxen. A furlong, a furrow long, was the distance a team of oxen could plow before needing a rest.

We have friends who live in an unspoiled English village near Cambridge in a house called "St. Francis Toft". Their home sits on the edge of the village green to which they still retain and jealously guard grazing rights. The land of their home is that traditional Toft in dimensions. Their riding stables sit on this land.

Family legend points to an Irish origin too, but so far we have not been able to substantiate that link. Some Irish Tofts are alledged to have come to Stoke-on-Trent during the construction of the Trent and Mersey Canal (1760) and settled there. In the family oral history, these navies were "puddlers" who trod down the clay lining of the canal bottom and sides during construction.

(Readers of "History Mystery" novels set in the middle-ages will often see the name Toft in the glossery too.)

My basketry studio: http://www.flickr.com/groups/etsyopenstudios/

Etsy has a collection of pictures on Flickr of studios of various etsy on-line shops. Today, I added photographs of my studio to this site.

My sign advertises the studio.

The wall of baskets welcomes you to the studio as do the baskets that spill into the basement living room.

Usually hiden from view, the storage area is a paen to organised chaos. I really do know, most of the time, where what I need really is.

The Ottawa Tulip Festival

This year we managed to get to the Tulip Festival in Ottawa at the right time. In other years we have either been too early or too late.

The first photo shows a glimpse of the tulips across the Rideau Canal at Dows' Lake.

In the second photo, Anne is getting ready to set off down the Rideau Canal from Hog's Back. Its a very pleasant ride from there to Commissioners Park where the rest of the photos were taken.

We rode around 16km (10 miles) for the round trip. We had to cross the canal at Hartwell's Lock to get to the largest display of tulips. There were lots of tourists as well as bike racks for our bikes. Tour buses seemed to multiply.

Ottawa is well worth visiting even if the Tulip Festival, in years of bad weather, is fondly called
Stem Fest.

Handy Basket for shopping

This "Handy Basket" was finshed and posted on my etsy shop site earlier today. Its a large basket that can be hung from the shoulders to hang at waist height.

Its design is adpated from a pattern supplied by Wanda Haydt, my current supplier of basketry supplies. Her website at www.whbaskets.com is a treasury of goodies for any basket maker.

Mothers' Day and Adrian

Our adult autistic son turns forty later this year. He lives in a group home with another autistic adult, about twenty minutes from our home. He is very well looked after there. The home is run by a Jewish organisation, established to take care of Jewish people with developmental disabilities. Fortunately, the organisation does also admit non-Jewish people, such as Adrian with his United Church of Canada background.

On Mother's Day he gave Anne, his mother, two gifts and a card. The plate above was hand-painted and signed by Adrian. The Hydrangers will be planted when the weather improves here in Ottawa, though Anne and I have not agreed yet on the location of the planting.

Adrian's card reads as follows:

"Mom, you've always been there... cheering me on, loving me for who I am and who I can be. You are simply one of the most important people in my life. Happy Mother's Day, with love."

Adrian then added his own personal message:

"Love, Adrian Toft. Gift, $35.00. Mom

The Ottawa Valley and Studio Tours

The Ottawa Valley is a hot bed area for Studio Tours. I have taken part in a number of them. The Red Trillium Tour is one such and it has two Tours in rural areas next to Ottawa. One is the spring tour for Mother's Day Weekend, and the other is the Fall Tour.

This year I visited three Studios on the Tour as a visitor. Each of the stops had a garden as its main focus. Guest artists or artisans could be found too. The photos above show the gardens of Joan and Doug McNab, Master Gardeners, and the work of Chris Van Zantan, Glass artist. Chris is shown with his works. You can see more of Chris's works at www.CVZ.ca.

Sorry about the spacing in my earlier blog

My mastery of the technicalities of blogging is not complete. Why there is so much blamk spacing in my earlier blog is a mystery to me. Sorry!

Willows in my garden: another blogger

WILLOWS IN MY GARDEN: A week or so ago I "planted" twenty or thirty new willow plants by cutting off around eight inches of a willow whip and sticking these cuttings directly into the ground. Click onto the lower of the three willow photos and you will see that these appear to be surviving and thriving.

The second photo shows a patch of willow that has quite severe winter damage. I will cut it down soon and make use of whatever is rescuable as white willow. My suburban Ottawa home is in the background.

In an earlier blog I showed a photo of the willow "stool" that remained after I cut down its willow whips last fall. At that time the stool was a dormant mass of apparently dead wood. The third photo, with tulips and narcissi, shows how this has sprung back to life. By the fall this stool will be a mass of willow whips reaching perhaps nine feet in height.

ANOTHER BLOGGER

This morning I received an email from another etsian telling me she had featured me in her blog.

Her day's blog is called "In love with Wicker" and it features on of my baskets along with two other baskets from other basket-makers. Check out her blog at www.dollyknits.blogspot.com and one of her etsy on-line shops at www.dollyknits.etsy.com.

Rainy day postings

For a rainy day Ottawa morning, I re-photographed the three bracelets I have on the "Vintage" section of my etsy shop. And then I added the three items shown here in a new section called "vintage coins".

The collection is a collection of souvenir coins, mostly dollars, from a variety of places in Canada including Red Lake, Kamloops and Annapolis Royal. The battered case contains a five shilling piece (a crown) that commemorates the 1951 Festival of Britain, while the coin is one of nine "crowns" to celebrate the Queen's silver jubilee in 1977. Apparently, we received these crowns as gifts for our three boys from relatives in England. (Anne has a much better memory than I.)

Click on any of my baskets to access my etsy shop to check out these and other items.

Stripping the willow

Today I began by re-photographing, in natural light, most of the remaining baskets in my etsy shop.By the time I completed taking the photos, deleted the existing photos and re-installed the new ones, the morning was over. It was worth doing since all these photographs are in focus and have much truer colours.

For relaxation, my eldest son, Julian, and I began stripping the willow. The first step is to cut the willow down to about six inches. As you can see, the remaining willow is a "stool" of cut-off branches and a few small branches I hope will develop in readiness for next year. The cut-off branches are then carried to my large compost pile where the leaves are stripped. The photo shows that much of the willow suffered wind burn damage during the winter, much more than in previous years. Most branches had the top 2-3 feet "burned" so as to be useless.

The salvaged pieces then had the bark stripped off. At this time of year you can easily peel the bark off each branch. Julian is shown with the green willow branches at his feet ready to be stripped. The bark that has been removed is next to him while the stripped willow is in the foreground. It appears to have a greenish tint, but, as it dries, it will become white.

Today we stripped enough willow to make the ribs for two rib baskets.

The finished rib basket in natural light

This eccentrically shaped rib basket made its first appearance on my etsy shop site earlier today. I think it came out well, with its own character. The "natural light" photographs were taken with indirect light flooding in from the living-room picture window, before the sun shone directly on that window.

This basket features hoops made from grapvines to give it its structure, 24 ribs of white willow (willow stripped of its bark), and tan 1/4" flat rattan cane weavers and God's eyes.