leather work – Phyllis Writes Words

Today has been a really great day. One of the main reasons I’m enjoying it so much is because days like this seldom happen. For starters, I’m off work and it’s perfect fall weather. The sun is golden and warm breezes blow through the open doors and windows of the house. It’s also a good day because I realized something important about plain old me.

I’m not extraordinarily well-educated, nor am I a world traveler, unless you count the many vacations I’ve enjoyed via friends’ Facebook photos. I’ve never done anything great or accomplished a monumental feat. Instead, what I am is a fairly down-to-earth collection of small abilities and random bits of knowledge and that’s okay. More than okay, actually, because these small, random, practical things come to my rescue on many occasions. Today was one such day. Continue reading “A BAG OF RANDOM SKILLS” →

I love the smell of leather. Why? If you get me anywhere near fine leather, the scent transports me back to my Grandad’s harness-making shop.

Isaac Baker lived his whole life on a farm north of Toronto, bounded by Dufferin and Bathurst Streets on each side, and Langstaff Road to the south. Now, the only part of the farm not under house-filled subdivisions is the eighty acre sugar bush, still standing tall and proud at the corner of Hwy 407 and Bathurst, and Grandad’s shop and house, closer to Dufferin.

Although the sugar bush, managed by my great uncle, with its many maple trees and hundreds and hundreds of gallons of sap collected each spring, figured large in my mother’s childhood, it never did in mine. Instead, I remember the leather shop and the tall west windows casting light over the main workbench. It was there that he’d let us play. Continue reading “Isaac Baker, Harness Maker” →