Last Day Trip of the Summer: NC Aquarium!

End of summer. Last day trip of the year...we went to the NC Aquarium!

So fun.I really love the jellyfish. They are in the dark, with special lights on them, so they glow...like this. Especially love this pink one with all the ruffly tentacles. They move in such amazing ways.

We also love the exotic fish...the ones that aren't supposed to be here in North Carolina, but somehow they are...like the lionfish, there with all the stripes and spikes (poisonous, of course.)


We go back and forth between the lionfish and the jellyfish and sometimes the spiny lobsters...





Another favorite is the big saltwater tank, with the replica of the sunken German U-Boat, an actual shipwreck off the outer banks of North Carolina. It is a fabulous exhibit! Of course there are sharks, circling in the tank, and live divers going in and out of there...really fun to see the big fish up close!


It was raining the day we went, but the rain had not melted the fabulous sandcastle outside...what a work of art that was! It was about as tall as I am, and not just any old sandcastle. It was covered with cavorting sea otters, and had cracks in the walls, with sand bricks showing behind the cracks, wonderful! My favorite part was the door, being pulled open by a sea otter paw (or some larger critter inside?)

It has been a lovely summer, i am so sorry it is over...back to school now!

Basket Vacation Last Entry

On the last day of my vacation this year, some of the local weavers from the basket guild (Basketweavers Guild of Bedford County) came over, and we worked with some waxed linen to make little necklaces. It was a fun project, and I hope next year maybe they will come over sooner so we can weave more together! Here are some of the little waxed linen projects I started, so I could show them some waxed linen tips.

Well, that’s about it for the vacation photos...’til next year!

Close to the end of our stay, I noticed a hummingbird casing out my baskets. She really stayed around a long time, and then sat up in the tree that shades my weaving area and tittered at me. I guess I was dense. She was accustomed to some of the old visitors putting out a feeder. But we didn’t have one.

Not to disappoint her, I made one, and here it is! I used an empty bubble container, drilled a hole in the cap, and covered it with red duct tape. Then I looped a waxed linen net around the bottle and filled it with sugar water.

It did not take her long at all to find it, and she sipped til we left…We did have to keep tipping the bottle up so she could reach the juice. What fun!

Next year, I will be sure to put it out right away, now that I know she comes around looking. I wish I could have caught a pic of her sipping, but she was a little shy. But I did catch a much slower fella eating….

This little guy was enjoying a big mushroom in the front yard of the farmhouse…geesh, I never knew that was what a slugfest looked like! He really did a number on this mushroom. I love mushrooms, too. Don’t blame him a bit!

Basket Vacation, part 5: Looping

Other weaving projects from my trip to PA:

Each year I find a smooth creek stone to weave round. My kids usually like to walk to the edge of the property, then down to the creek. We walk IN the creek all the way back to the farmhouse. It is a lovely way to cool down, and the dogs love it, too.

This year I used hemp and made a little drawstring pouch to wear, with my creek stone inside. I also wove a little pouch to keep my digital camera in while I was wading down the creek!

Just so everything wouldn’t be perfect, our water pump went out the first day there. It was 45 years old, so I suppose we could hardly complain. We were 4 days without running water. Thank goodness for the creek! At least we could haul water for flushing toilets.

In the very prolonged and filthy process of locating the water pump (buried in the muddy front yard,) my husband found an exquisite little glass bottle, which he presented to me. I'm sure it is very old. What a lovely little treasure! I immediately looped it so I could wear as a flower vase.

Basket Vacation, part 4: Grapevine

Every once in awhile, my husband comes up with something he thinks I should be able to weave.

This was a bunch of grapevine that was on some trees he cut down. Wow, should I use it or not? What a tote it was to get this back out of the field, across the swinging bridge, all the way up the hill to the weaving tree! I guess I had better use it.

I like grapevine in NC, but in PA, it is different. It dies back in the winter, is best cut in the fall. Again, I am only there in the summer. The young growth is snappy, green, and unusable. The old growth is brittle and not very flexible. The useable pieces are large. The best thing about them is the exfoliating bark, which is a rich milk chocolate color. I collect a bunch of bark every year, and have coiled with it, working on plaiting with it.

But what to do with the vine itself? I have used it for rib basket framework and ribs…but found I had to spin cordage to weave the rest of the basket, as there is nothing flexible enough to use for weavers. I have also used it in large wicker baskets, but they require more material than I was able to collect this year.


So, I made a big random weave garden pod. These are fun to make part of the landscape. I ended up leaving this one for my cousin, and I think she will like it in her natural yard. It is big enough that her children or dog may even like to hide in it! They look especially great when planted next to climbing plants.

This pod also contains some smilax (greenbriar,) Virginia Creeper, honeysuckle, and pieces of Autumn olive I had left over from the other baskets…it is something of a “use up the ends” sort of basket. I worked on it over the course of the week, you probably caught a glimpse of it in day 2’s post.

Basket Vacation, part 3: Insects

One of the things I have to be prepared for on this trip is insects. Boy, do they love me! In NC, it is mostly mosquitoes, ticks and in May/June biting flies, but then they are gone. In PA, there are also all sorts of gnats and little sweat bees that don’t seem to hurt anyone else – but they love me. They sting or bite or whatever it is they do, and usually on my ears or neck. So you will see me all covered up, even in the heat, and with a bandanna wrapped around my ears. What a pain! One thing that really seems to help keep them away is Florida Special Insect repellent. It is a great product I order online, from webaway.com . Made from natural ingredients, it has a strong fresh scent, and even helps to sooth bites that have already occurred. You should try it, it is great!

Basket Vacation, Part 2: Autumn Olive

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Here is the Autumn Olive, Eleaganus augustifolia, basket i said i would talk about in my last post. I know it is crude, but i am pretty proud of it.


This fast-growing shrub quickly invades open areas and is considered a nuisance by property owners.I began playing with weaving autumn olive in 2002. My first attempts were dismal. My previous collecting/ weaving experience was limited to vines, and I found the Autumn Olive inflexible by comparison. I also could not deal with the extreme taper of the branches.In the interim years, I am beginning to understand what parts of the plant to harvest and how to use it.

I am thinking it probably should be managed and handled like willow. Since I have never had a willow basket class, I am pretty much flying by the seat of my pants, here. Usually I bring a book on vacation for ideas on how to handle this very tough plant, but this year I forgot to bring one! Oh well, time to test my memory and creativity!

I have been cutting the one-year old growth and trying to go back to the same places each year, to make withes to weave with. Problem is, I am there in the summer. They are supposed to be cut in the fall. But I have no real option. I also am cutting some new growth to have something to weave in the tight spots. Here you see me carrying it on my head, down to the creek to soak in order to make the border. I usually weight it down with rocks and leave it most of the day, or overnight.

This came out pretty well for a “garden basket,” which is all I have ever figured out to do with them….. This is a process- focused thing for me, the act of making the basket, figuring out what works and what doesn’t, the soothing repetitiveness of the weaving, interspersed with the challenges, is very recreational.

Here are some photos of some of my previous years’ attempts at using autumn olive.

When I come home, I put them out in the garden, and they keep for a few years, anyway…

Back from a Basket Vacation Retreat!

Well, just home from my annual trip to PA – my wild basket retreat each year. It is a family-owned farm, and my goal is to make baskets with what I find there. Yes, I bring a little other “stuff” just to make sure I have weaving material, but most of the time I weave whatever I can find in the woods.

Here I am the first day, collecting. This is just honeysuckle. By now, I have scoped out most of the open areas, but there is still woodland and a lot of tangled briars that I need to bushwhack through to say I really know what is there. That multiflora rose, mixed with black raspberries and smilax is a tough combination! Hence my surplus US Marine camophlage pants…they can take it pretty well. This is a pretty dramatic contrast to the dresses and skirts i wear at home every day. I wear pants so infrequently, the dogs get excited when they see me wearing them - they know it means i am going collecting!

And here are some honeysuckle baskets that I made throughout the week. Since I am working the honeysuckle green, it has a lot of shedding bark, and is somewhat brittle. But it makes a lovely little rustic basket. Traditionally, honeysuckle is dried, then boiled and “skinned” to make it very white and flexible. No time for that, though.



I generally average about a basket a day. This year, I gave one small one away, not shown here. Otherwise, this is my yield for the week. Some are started with cordage made from honeysuckle bark and grasses. (Actually, the big one is back is Autumn Olive, but I will tell you about that in another post!)

In this last pic you can see the pond below the farmhouse and the swing...what a lovely, peaceful place! Come back to read more about my vacation later!