May 29, 2013
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What’s this?

Check out this article in The Star.

The existence of places like Kensington Market, places that don’t look like everywhere else, places that have some special identity in the City are Toronto treasures.  But things are changing fast in Hogtown. Condo developments are going up so fast, there are areas of Toronto, areas I lived in for years, that I no longer even recognize. Will Kensington be able to survive box store development on its fringes? I worry that we’re homogenizing our downtown neighbourhoods to the detriment of the broader City. Will people flock to a new box store to save a few bucks or will they remain loyal to the small independent businesses that give Kensington its character? How would you feel about this if you lived there?

I have a soft spot for Kensington Market. I used to busk there on button accordion sometimes, right outside Tom’s Place. It was so much fun. I’d meet a great assortment of characters every time I played there. It’s changed quite a bit over the years, but still it has remained a unique pocket in the City. I sure hope this old neighbourhood is going to be OK.

Here’s a delightful video my friend Candy Minx shot in Kensington Market. That’s me playing the squeezebox…

And here’s another one…I’m playing a Newfoundland tune called The Star of Logy Bay. This video gives a bit of a taste of the atmosphere in the Market. It was early and still fairly quiet.

May 28, 2013
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The Marginal Veggie Garden

There is almost too much shade in our yard to have a veggie garden. I say almost because, well, we have one anyway. Garlic is doing well. Spinach, lettuce, onions all do well. Carrots do pretty good. Tomatoes and cucumbers are marginal…we get some but our yield isn’t nearly as good as it could be if we had a lot more sun.  We have two veggie areas – this one is a raised garden.

The marginal veggie garden

The marginal veggie garden

May 27, 2013
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The best cat you’ll ever meet

Our cat Jerry died today. We don’t know how old he was when he appeared in our lives, so we really don’t know how old he really was – for sure a senior. He was the best cat you’ll ever meet, but you all know that. He adopted us not long after we moved into the old Anchovy World Headquarters on Blackthorn, so he’s been with us for most of our marriage.  He was starving when he first came around, panhandling. He had FIV when we got him. Some vets said his prospects were poor and that he was likely to infect the other cats. They were wrong. Sure he had health problems but he had a good run. He had a heart murmur. He had a bad skin problem, maybe related to his FIV that miraculously went away when we moved down to Long Branch. He had bad teeth and eventually no teeth.

Jerry loved bbq. I’ve never seen a cat go so crazy for bbq. He would supervise and insist on being cut in on the action. He also loved Portuguese grilled chicken with hot sauce.

Jerry was a cat of great character.  Tuffy P named him Jerry because when he came to us, he had crossed eyes, and that reminded her of Jerry Lewis in The Nutty Professor.

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May 26, 2013
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Once upon a time….

Let me first assure you all that this post is a work of fiction. It must be because any old fool knows what you see here is not possible. There are no edible mushrooms in Southern Ontario (we’ve been through this before). The morels you see below are fictional mushrooms that were picked in a fictional land where edible mushrooms are abundant.

Yellow Morel

Yellow Morel

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I’ll post some fictional video later. Some of you may say the video looks real, but as I heard many times on the news in the past week, video can be doctored so don’t believe anything you see.

May 25, 2013
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Conversion Project

At the Christie show today, I bought a junker 4-string banjo with a project in mind. When I get around to it (I’m going to finish the mountain banjo I’m working on and make a couple gourd banjos first), I’m going to fix it up and convert it to a 5 string open-back banjo. The rim is in good shape but could use refinishing. The head is maybe ok. Hardware should be replaced. I’ll build a new neck. I’ll decide later on if this one will be fretless or if it will be my first foray into fretting.

junker banjo

junker banjo

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May 25, 2013
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Christie Antique Show

There are two Christie Antique Shows each year, in May and September. Calling it an antique show is maybe stretching things. It’s a show of stuff…everything from antiques to junk, located in a conservation area not far from Hamilton. It’s hard to buy junk these days, with all those “picker” shows on television. There’s plenty of interesting stuff for sale, but prices tend to be on the very high side. For instance, I was looking for oil cans for oil can banjos. There were lots there, priced from $30-$130. While if I bought one on eBay, I would have to pay for shipping, $30 seems mighty high and that was the low end. I tried to negotiate on cans and nobody seemed interested in dropping their prices at all. I guess there’s a market for old oil cans.

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DSC03022We did of course manage to fill up our car with stuff we didn’t need. This included a whirly-gig, a carved, painted bird, a bunch of large plastic letters (um, we needed those) and my find of the day, an old tenor banjo, which I’ll convert to a 5-string eventually, with a hand-carved neck….and more.

car full of junk (we needed this stuff, honest)

car full of junk (we needed this stuff, honest)

May 24, 2013
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Hogtown Hoedown

We had so much fun square dancing when we were at Merlefest, we really wanted to do some up here in Toronto as well. The first opportunity we found was a dance called the Hogtown Hoedown that took place tonight in a church hall in mid-town Toronto. It featured Jacque Adain calling and the Lonesome Ace Stringband playing. We went with our friends I & E, who we always enjoy spending time with.

At Merlefest, we did big circle country dancing and tonight it was old time square dancing. They’re similar in many respects and different in others. I’d say tonight’s dance was more difficult overall. There were times I had trouble following the caller, but fortunately I wasn’t alone and others were getting messed up as well. On other dances, we had an easier time of it. In all cases though, it was a lot of fun.

With Tuffy P at the Hogtown Hoedown

With Tuffy P at the Hogtown Hoedown

There were people there at various skill levels from duffers like us to really experienced dancers. Tuffy P shot this next bit of video – we sat out this dance.