Flood clean-up one week later

Reports state that 492 homes are now listed with the City of Ottawa as houses with flooded basements following last Friday's rain storm. For some people this is the third or fourth time their homes have been flooded. Lawsuits from the last flood on 2002 are still on-going. People are very upset with the City since it promised in 2002 that the work it did following that flood would prevent any further floods.

We were very fortunate that the water that entered our house was "grey" water, not sewage. Grey water is storm water mixed with household water from the sinks and bathtubs. we were fortunate too that we had little in our finished basement that was damaged other then the flooring and the wallboard. The photo on the right showsthe material removed from our basement and stored under our carport. The one on the left shows our home and our neighbour's with one of the City's responses to the disaster. "Local traffic only."

The centered photograph shows another City response, in two languages, to reports of people stealing damged furniture and electronics sitting on lawns while waiting to be taken to the dump.

July 30th. 1966

On July 30th, 1966, just forty-three years ago, I married Anne Margaret Clews in a ceremony at the Swan Bank Methodist Church in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, England. The wedding reception was held in the Floral Hall in nearby Tunstall.

Every guest made sure that they left the reception well before 3 00 pm that day so that they could watch the finals of the World Cup of Soccer. England was in the final, playing against Germany.

It is not every newly married couple that spends their first night of their honeymoon accomanied by the shouts of "England", England." (England won!)

A "Balanced" approach to tray making.

A few weeks ago I made my first "trade" through Etsy. Anne selected two sets of ear rings made by Etsian "Balanced" and in return I sent Balanced a tray-making kit. Anne loves the ear rings!



Balanced lives in Dublin, Ireland so it took a while for the kit to arrive there. It did arrive a couple of days ago, and Balanced's blog shows her beautiful, new tray with basket edging.



You can see the tray and the flattering comments about my tutorials at http://balancedcrafts.com/blog/ and visit her Etsy shop at http://www.balanced.etsy.com//

Featured Etsian: AudreysCountryCrafts

A few weeks ago, Audrey of AudreysCountryCrafts contacted me to ask if I was willing to be featured in her blog:(http://audreyscountrycrafts.blogspot.com/) In her blog, Audrey fetures Canadian artists and artisans. I agreed and became one of her featured artists. I am now reciprocating that offer and featuring Audrey here.

Audrey lives on a farm near Altona, Manitoba. This community is south of Winnipeg. When we lived in Red Lake in N.W. Ontario, Altona would be described as only six or seven hours away by car, a short drive for a weekend.

Audrey, like me, came up with the name for her business by combining her name with a description of what she does. As you can see from the three examples here, she does specialise in a variety of country crafts. "After being on Etsy, my shop name is kind of boring. There are so many out there with much cooler names."

Audrey started her crafting when she was very young. "My Mom sewed a lot of our clothes when we were younger. And so I started sewing and playing with the sewing machine then. I sewed a lot of my boys clothes when they were young for boys clothes are pretty easy. Then I saw an article in the local paper. Someone was giving beginner folk art painting classes. It looked interesting and Brad (hubby) was all for it. I was a stay-at-home mom and he thought it would be a good way for me to get out of the house one evening a week. He would take care of the boys. I think he's sorry now. He didn't realize it would get out of hand and take up a whole room in the house. Too late now."

There are many other crafts she would like to try, but comments from Brad such as, "You're not going to start doing that too," are a little inhibiting. Audrey may (maybe) stick to the many crafts she enjoys now.

Her inspirations come from a group of friends she meets with regularly on Wednesday evenings. But the greatest inspiration comes from her 93.5 year-old Grandmother who, despite losing her eyesight, still knits everyday, making scarves, mittens and slippers for her grandchildren. "I hope I can still craft when I am 93."

Audrey works part-time as a school bus driver. "Its a wonderful job for a mom. I have holidays when the boys do and summers off!"

Audrey most enjoys making items such as the painted jean blamket. ""I enjoy making them because they encompass sewing and painting, my two favourite things to do." And like all crafters she adds, "There are definately items I will never do again. I loved the way they turned out, but they were too much work and you can only charge so much."

Visit her etsy shop at www.AudreysCountryCrafts.etsy.com/

One day of tear down after the flood.

The the three man crew that did the tear down did an excellent job. As you can see, our beautiful "Pergo" floor on top of "dry core" sub-flooring is no more. Huge industrial fans and de-humidifiers are scattered through the basement. And even the drywall around one of the steel support posts was cut out to the two foot level.

My basketry studio huddles wherever it can. Cane and willow supplies, completed baskets, my basketry tools as well as other tools sit with living room furniture, laundry and Julian's clothing, bed and goods.

We were very fortunate in some respects. Two card tables had to be thrown out, but Anne's piano and other furniture is unscathed.

The small drain is the innocent souce of the damage. As the storm sewers filled beyond capacity the excess waters entered basements via such small openings. Such large amounts of damages from such small apertures.

My insurance broker from the Ontario Teachers' Insurance Plan called today to check on progress and to assure me we are covered. He seems to think that the fans and dehumidifiers should be let to work for five days. Julian will have to be in a motel for that period. Its not the comforts of home.

Basement flooded

On Friday 24th our basement, along with hundreds of other basements in the locality, was flooded. A neighbourhood bucket brigade limited the damge. We could not use shop vacuum cleaners to suck up the water since the power was off too.

Fortunately we have a rider on our insurance that provides for coverage in the case of sewer back-up. By Sunday at 1 15 pm a demolition and renovation crew had arrived, as had an insurance adjuster. Demolition of the flooring and the lower two feet of the dry wall began.

Other damage includes the cabinetry in the basement kitchen and bathroom.

Julian may have to go to a motel for a few nights while fungacides are applied.

The Absolute Squirrel-Proof adjustable bird feeder

Two days ago we bought "The Absolute Squirrel-proof Adjustable Bird Feeder" from Lee Valley tools in Ottawa. (Lee Valley does have a catalogue.) We have been pleasantly surprised to see that it works quite well.

Squirrels had been raiding our previous bird-feeder. The wooden top was made of two sections with a gap between them at the peak. This provided a handy place for the squirrels to hook their hind claws in as they hung over the edge of the feeder and feasted.

The new feeder has a very smooth top. There is nothing to grip. As the squirrels lean over to feed, they slide forward and topple off to the ground.

If they attempt to grab the perch from below, their weight causes the perch to lower, cutting off access to the seed. The photo with the squirrel behind the feeder shows the rear perch is lower than the front perch, and the seed inaccessible.

We can set the trigger to release the perch at three different weights. At the light weight it will accept Cardianals, Juncos and Sparrows. At the medium weight it accepts Black Birds, Mourning Doves and Blue Jays. It accepts heavier birds at the heavy setting. The sparrow at the feeder shows it works.

New Vintage items at my Etsy shop

Today I added seven (7) vintage items to my Etsy shop. Four of them are shown here. One is a copper crumb sweeper according to the appraisers at Birks. We have always called it a crumb tray. A seond is a sugar sifter while a third is a commemorative truella (trowel) used to lay the cornerstone of a new vestry of the Primitive Methodist Chapel in Burslem in 1901. The last shows the serving knife and fork to a similarly aged set of fish knives and forks. Six more fish knives and forks complete the set.

Check out my etsy shop by clicking on one of the images at the side of this post from JohnToftBasketry.

You might enjoy the vintage Mad Bomber Hat too!

The joys of snail mail

My wife, Anne, recently completed transcribing to the computer letters she wrote to her mother in the 60s, 70s and 80s. These letters told of our early days in Canada, and of our slowly coming to grips with autism and Adrian. When we first emmigrated, it was far too costly to phone England, except in an emergancy situation. Letter-writing, using the aerogram flimsies, was the best medium to keep in touch. And those letters now provide a great record of what we did in those days, and what Anne felt about the situation (at least, in a self-edited form for her mother's pleasure.)

Today, we think nothing of sending an email to relatives in England. But those missives are so ephemeral. It is unlikely such mesages will be the valuable archival material seen in those letters sent home to Mum.

For several years now we have sent an annual Christmas Newsletter by email to all kinds of friends and relatives, with hard copies to those without email addresses. Anne has conscientiously added those Newsletters to the archival records of the computer as well as keeping hard copies. Recent experiences with searches for copies of old photographs on the computer show that such archival efforts may be in vain. As we updated from one computer to another, records have been lost. The written word still has its value.

An update on Adrian

Adrian continues to bring both joys and tribulations to our lives. He can be very happy, joking around and enjoying life. But he can also explode at any minute and grab your arm and try to bite you.

The photographs show Anne, Adrian and I on our late May, early June holiday in Rhode Island. The smile on his face as we took a harbour cruise around Newport was a joy to behold. (The picture taker was a retiree from our home town, Stoke-on-Trent in England. Its a small world.)

During that trip Adrian's fear of heights grew larger. We are hoping to speak to his psychiatrist soon about this.

Every Saturday, we pick Adrian up at his group home at 10 00 am and take him with us for the day, returning him at 7 00 pm. And every Saturday we sign for his 4 00 pm pill that helps control his depression and his behavioural outbursts. A side effect of his medication is putting on weight. He is on a diet to contol his type 2 diabetes, but it appears to do little with his weight gain. Another topic for the psychiatrist.

On Saturday we visited Nathan, Christine (ma belle fille), and Justin and Gabrielle, our grandchildren. It was Christine's 40th birthday. As is our custom when visiting with Adrian, we stayed for only about 30 minutes. This way we reduce the likelyhood of a behavioural episode to a minimum. We do not want the grandchildren to see Adrian in a rage.

August 21st is, apparently, National Senior Citizens Day in the USA. I submitted version 2 of an article entitled "Retirement: A time for new challenges" to Etsy and its Storque blog. This may be published for that day. In it I discuss basket-making as a therapy that helps in the stresses of life associated with Adrian. I hope it is published.

Vintage ship in a bottle

My father gave me this Ship in a bottle many years ago, probably in the 70s. A friend of his made it. I added Bermuda sand to the seascape.

It was made in England and has crossed the Atlantic!

The triangular cross-section of the bottle makes it very stable.

Mukluks and mitts

Today I added these vintage mukluks and mitts to my etsy shop's vintage section. These were clothing items I bought in the 80s when we lived in Red Lake. There it was not unusual for the temperature to drop to minus 40 degrees. I used to jog or cross-country ski as long as it was not below minus twenty-five celcius with no wind.

I find Ottawa winters colder even at minus twenty. Its the humidity. Red Lake and the adjacent prairies really do have a dry cold!

Battle won

After a few days of resting from my achilles tendonitus, I was now ready to resume life again. As I looked through the bedroom window this morning, I saw wasp after wasp disappearing into a hole by the pathway to the back garden. This was where I was stung three times last Saturday. Repeated sprayings of Raid had had no effect over the intervening days..

One neighnour has a sister that is very allergic to wasp stings. The other babysits toddlers. Now that I was mobile once more, I could attempt to seek and destroy the wasps' nest. This time I dressed carefully, not in shorts and a tee shirt. I put on long trousers, tucked carefully into long socks. I added a long sleeved shirt, buttoned tight, and gloves into which the sleeves were pushed. Wellington boots were next. The final touch was Anne's bug hat, a hat with a screen that I tucked into the shirt neck. I was ready.

I boiled a kettle of water and poured it down the hole that was under the 4" by 4" edging to the pathway. Wasps still buzzed around me. I leavered the 4 by 4 from its location. There, nine inches to the right of the entry tunnel and previously hidden by the 4 by 4 was the papery nest.
More Raid was applied. I then dug out the nest and crushed it. I then filled in the hole where the nest had been with soil and left the area exposed to the sun.

I called on my neighbours to advise them not to go into their yards for the rest of the day.

Wasps are a perrenial problem in our neighbourhood. Until this year, the nests have been found in sheds and garages, suspended from the ceiling. This underground nest was a new twist.

500 Baskets: A book to inspire.

When I need inspiration in my basket-making, I turn to "500 Baskets: a celebration of the basket makers art", Edited by Susan Mowery Kieffer, published by Lark Books of New York in 2006. the works there are awesome and awe inspiring.

Three examples are shown here. Brian Jewett's basket is made from garden hose, cable ties and valve handles. "Both the cactus form and the garden hose are strong water symbols, speaking to both conservation and consumption."

The work of Joan. E. Scantz, made from peeled and unpeeled willow, is much more traditional in style, but is a particularly striking example of how traditional styles can be so modern too.

Leslee Ann Burtt's work uses the traditional materials of seagrass, reed and cedar bark and couples them with a mule-deer antler in a striking and evocative manner.

These are just three examples of the works in this wonderful book. My work can only be a pale shadow compared to such expertise, design, and creativity.

Miss-steps to losing weight and becoming fit

More than a month ago, my eldest son, Julian, bought me a Wii Fit computer system. I had talked about buying one, particularly for the winter months when it is often too icy on the side-walks to jog. The system told me how overweight I was (4o lbs!) and described by Wii Fit age as 75, ten years beyond my actual age. This was the incentive I needed to get back to exercising daily, reducing weight and getting back my fitness.

I was a good runner in the 80's and 90's, taking part in 10k runs, half-marathons and marathons. I decided to get back into running. On Wii Fit over the course of two eeks, I progressed from a 10 minute run to a 3o minute run. But it was getting to be boring. So I began to run outside on the Trans-Canada Trail and the local streets.

Initially I was running around 3kms. I had some foot pain, but it went away. On off days I would rest, walk or bicycle. Before we went to Vancouver, I was running perhaps three times a week distances of around 4kms.

Vancouver was a delight for a runner. I could step from the hotel onto the sea wall trail, and be in Stanley Park in a couple of minutes. There I ran 4km and 5 km runs, and had swimming and biking too. Achilles tendon twinges could be felt, but they were not too serious. I did not take the advice heard today, "Listen to your body."

It was in Vancouver that I bought an inexpensive pair of running shoes from Sears. They seemed fine when I ran 5kms in them. No blisters, just a nagging ache.

On returning home, I did not run for three days. I then ran a 5km distance in my new shoes on the trail. I did a good time and the pain subsided early in the run. Yesterday, I put on my old running shoes and ran a 4km street and trail run. The starting 1/2 km was very painful, and while the pain diminished it was uncomfortable for the whole run.

On my return home, I visited my neighbour who knows about things medical. Acilles Tendonitus was her verdict. I then made my next mistake. I decided to ask advice from the local Running Room where I would buy a good pair of running shoes. The mistake was to decide to walk to the store, just a mile away from home. The walk there was painful, and the walk back even more so. By the time I was home with advice (R.I.C.E.) and a good pair of supportive runners, my hobbling had resulted in additional pain in one of my thighs. Maybe it is too late for this old dog to learn!

Resting my heels on a bag of frozen peas semed to help as did a hot bath after. I will take it easy for a few days!!!!!

Black Forest head

As I said in my etsy description of this item, my identical twin brother gave me this head in the 1960s since "It reminded him of me." I suggested that he look in the mirror if he wanted to be reminded of me.

I placed it in the "vintage" section of my shop and made a guestimate of what it might sell for. In 1966, when we lived in the McGill student ghetto in Montreal, a visiting fellow student, Mhorag, felt this head as she searched for the bathroom light-switch in our appartment. I can still recall her scream!

Vancouver, British Columbia

We have just returned from a week in Vancouver, British Columbia. We booked this holiday to coincide with the week that Adrian spent at Camp Misquah, near Wakefield in Quebec.

The week was so good we are thimking of returning again next year. We booked through Expedia.ca, a deal involving a direct flight from Ottawa to Vancouver, car rental and a stay at the Westin Bayshore. We flew via WestJet, and enjoyed the five hour flight very much.

The hotel was on the waterfront and is shown in one of the photos. It was very near to Stanley Park so I could step out of the hotel onto the jogging trails each day while Anne did lengths in the hotel pool. It was also close to Denham Street where we rented bikes on two occasions and rode from 20 to 32 kms each time. The bike/jogging trails are excellent. The peninsular in one of the photos is Stanley Park.

The other photo is on some of the plants in the Van Dusen gardens, a great place to visit and enjoy the lushness of the West Coat's vegetation.

One other highlight was a vist to Granville Island and its artist and artisan shops. In one outlet operated by the BC Crafts guild, I saw several top quality baskets. One I had to ask for help in identfying the material from which it was made. the answer was "willow bark." Next spring, when I strip my home-grown willow I will use some of the bark strippings to make baskets rather than adding all the material to my composters.

Three of the days were sunny. The rest saw intermittant drizzle and light rain.

An old favourite basketry book

As you will see from the photographs, Flo Hoppe's "Wicker Basketry" is a well used favourite basket-techniques book of mine. It is water-stained, battered and bruised, but it still remains one of my "turn to" books as I work on new variations of old styles.

The three photographs here show the wealth of information presented with great clarity in this book. The example from page 62 of the Three-rod plain border is illustrative of the usefulness of the book, its illustrations and its detail. The cover photograph and the illustration and instructions for the Sewing Basket with Lid show the inspiration for my sewing basket series.

Wicker Basketry was published in 1989 by the Interweave Press of Loveland, Colorado, USA. I recommend this book to beginning basket-makers as well as more advanced ones if it is at all available today.