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Selling Pottery To Snowbirds


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You birders may think it’s a new species but last weekend I sold pots mainly to snowbirds visiting Arizona. They where on their annual migration route escaping bad weather up north and east. They range all thru the southwest in winter months and usually leave by April 1st.You can tell a snowbird buy the land yacht or second home they roost in. My pottery went everywhere but I was aware of it going to all lower provinces in Canada as well as Maine thru Alaska and the upper Midwest ,midwest as well as the east coast and west coast.

Snowbirds get restless and start the migration back north when the weather heats up in the southwest to the 90’s or April 1st whichever comes first.

If you choose to sell pots to them wrap them well as they will go a long ways and put a card in the bag so they can order more.

Mark

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In the cold days of this past (hopefully) winter, I gave serious thought to becoming a snowbird. A couple of vendors at the holiday/Christmas in early December were on migration themselves . . . the show was a stop along the way and as they were packing up, their thoughts were on getting to Fla. Oldlady is part of the flock.

 

Pottery has a way of migrating . . . many customers have told me of their plan to send the piece being purchased to Colorado and other states, India, Japan, Israel, and who knows where else. Heck, the passports for my pottery have more country stamps than mine.

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have 5 shovels for different types of snow.

T.

Is that a Canadian/Inuit thing . . . one shovel for each type of snow? But, I thought there are hundreds of words for types of snow.

 

I use to have three shovels . . . one for each of the kids. They all grew up and moved out.

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Bruce it a good feeling to have pottery on most continents and all countries

I had a warm spot when a woman bought a fist full of spoonrests for china.

 

Tom,

You made me go count mine in the garden shed-I have 11 shovels but none have touched snow-repeat NONE have touched snow.

from a chip shovel to a trenching from spade to flat to short handle to long.

I wish my digging days where behind me but I know they are not.

Tools are one thing I have a lot of-maybe more than one should have.

Mark

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I lived in Florida for 30 years so I know the snowbird migration up close a personal. They come they clog the roads they leave... Then the tourists arrive and do the same. LOL I moved to north Georgia a few years ago but I still don't own a snow shovel. I feel left out next fall when the bright orange shovels hit the shelves I shall have to go buy one just to say I have one as I have no intention of shoveling snow... Ever. If it's so high it needs shoveling chances are I can't get through the mountains anyway so I'll just stay home until it melts enough to not need shoveling. I have also shipped art all over the world and its a really cool thought to think that something I created is having a life of its own in another country.

 

T

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as a member (in pretty good standing) of the flock of snowbirds, i have to confess that i have never had a problem leaving my home in WV for the warmth of florida for the 7 years i have made the migration.  until April 1.  when my neighbor called and said there was water running out my front door.

 

it turned out to be the small radiator i had installed in the tool room between the studio and the kiln room.  it burst from the extreme cold of this winter and when it warmed up enough to melt, it did.  not out the FRONT door, just the door i had installed where there had been a garage door.  my friend found the water shutoff and turned it just as the water company man arrived to turn off water to the house.  a visit from the HVAC man fixed the problem but he kept the radiator to have a friend of his try brazing it just so he could see the process.  no damage done to either the studio or the house.  

 

some of my pots will be in use in florida for the first time this year.  i normally just make stuff to take home but found an empty bowl supper will happen next week and donated a few bowls for it.  not   exactly   my pots, the guild got together and glazed them at the Clay Center in st pete.  who knows what they will look like.

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I have one shovel that got a lot of use this winter and occasionally wore shorts to shovel the snow when it wasn't minus degrees out. I wear shorts in the house all year round. Each year I get closer and closer to becoming a snowbird.

 

Paul

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have 5 shovels for different types of snow.

T.

Is that a Canadian/Inuit thing . . . one shovel for each type of snow? But, I thought there are hundreds of words for types of snow.

 

I use to have three shovels . . . one for each of the kids. They all grew up and moved out.

 

I am aware of the Innuit vocabulary for different types of snow. We have three teenagers, all prefer a different shovel. Who am I to say? As long as the snow gets shovelled, who cares which shovel is used?

T

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have 5 shovels for different types of snow.

T.

Is that a Canadian/Inuit thing . . . one shovel for each type of snow? But, I thought there are hundreds of words for types of snow.

 

I use to have three shovels . . . one for each of the kids. They all grew up and moved out.

 

And I bet they haven't been back since, huh?!? :lol:

 

The husband pulls out the snow shovels around the first of November and puts them by the front door. Since adopting that practice, we haven't had an appreciably snowy winter in more than three years. I swear I'm going to hide those suckers next November! :angry:  I miss my snow!!!!

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Dale pots, on 04 Apr 2015 - 06:06 AM, said:snapback.png

 Tom I don't have any snow shovels but I have 20 pairs of shorts for all the different kinds of weather we get here   :)

That is just cruel!

Tom just remember in so -cal

 

 

 Tom I don't have any snow shovels but I have 20 pairs of shorts for all the different kinds of weather we get here  :)

That is just cruel!

T. :wacko:

 

 Tom

Just remember in so-cal that person pulls out into a massive traffic jamb 24/7 7 days a week to go ANYWHERE.So the 20 pairs of shorts is needed as getting a new pair takes two weeks to drive to the store 1 mile away.

Mark

 

T.  :wacko:

 
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The husband pulls out the snow shovels around the first of November and puts them by the front door. Since adopting that practice, we haven't had an appreciably snowy winter in more than three years. I swear I'm going to hide those suckers next November! :angry:  I miss my snow!!!!

 

My other half does the same thing.  Puts a shovel and a bag of salt by the conservatory door.  Front door is shielded by a porch so getting out of there is not usually a problem.  There was a year, back in 198? when we couldn't get the garage door open for two weeks!  But that rarely happens.

 

We also wear shorts indoors all year round, and outdoors most of the time too.  Except the occasional year when it does snow.  Not this year, tho' we did see a few flakes of the white stuff one day.

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The rental I moved into has an old fuel oil furnace and radiators. The den would be a sauna and the kitchen ice cold. I kept several layers on all winter to be able to afford food. I didn't bring a shovel to the new house. The kids and I figured out we could just use a leaf rake on the snow if done within a couple of hours.

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chantay, i had an oil burning boiler and radiators installed in my house when i bought it in 2002.  it had individual electric heaters in each room. expensive and inefficient.  one huge room had two strips 30 feet apart.  brrrrr.

 

find an old person who knows boilers and have your radiators checked for stuck valves or some such problem. your oil company should have someone who can do it.   younger technicians have probably never worked on radiators.

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The rental I moved into has an old fuel oil furnace and radiators. The den would be a sauna and the kitchen ice cold. I kept several layers on all winter to be able to afford food. I didn't bring a shovel to the new house. The kids and I figured out we could just use a leaf rake on the snow if done within a couple of hours.

A stiff corn broom works. It's my "springtime" shovel :)

 

I had a bottle that went to France and a Champaigne vineyard last month. That was cool!

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I hope to become a reverse snowbird.  I've lived in FL for 35 years, but we recently bought an old farm way up at the top of NY, just a couple hours south of Montreal.  This winter, it didn't rise above freezing there for two and a half months.  I watched this from Florida, and it's helping us to make the decision to keep the house here.

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Ray - My husband looked at buying a place in upstate New York. He is a southern boy and thought it would be neat to live where we would have lots of snow. I asked him if he was going to be shoveling all that snow? When he answered no that his Dr wouldn't let him I got out a map of the USA and drew a line from left to right and said then we stay below this line cuz I ain't shoveling all that snow either.

 

He was devastated when he saw that Utah and Montana were also off the table. He has learned to be happy in northern Georgia... And complains continuously all winter long of how cold it is, he even wears gloves IN the house. Southern boy meet winter Winter laugh at southern boy.

 

T

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one problem with being a snowbird is the wardrobe.  i have a closet full of wool sweaters in WV.  it is cold in spring and late fall and i leave about dec 1.  need sweaters.  got to fl and found the coldest winter of the 7 years i have done this.  had some sweaters from the drive down.  bought more, the thrift shops here are absolutely the best thing about the state. wore them until last week when it hit the 80s and has not gone down.

 

am about to drive home in 10 days or so.  have to have sweaters when i drive and when i get there.  last frost date in wv is may 15. now i will have one closet and two dressers full of wool sweaters.  in one location.

 

no shorts.  fat oldlady legs are not shorts compatible.

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Pugaboo, I sympathize with your husband.  I was up at the farm on New Years, winter before last.  Fortunately, we're on a plowed road, but when I got there, the snowplow drift was chest high, and I had to sort of flop over it to get off the road.  Floundered down the lane and thought I might die, and no one would find me until the spring thaw.

 

But, it's home to me-- born in Syracuse, and the best summers of my life were spent on the St. Lawrence river.  We have 4 colleges within a few minutes drive (my grandmother graduated from St. Lawrence University), a market town just 10 miles away, and 44 acres of woods and meadows to play in.  It's a dream come true, really, but I guess I'll still enjoy escaping the winter.

 

Here in Florida, the chinaberry trees are in bloom.  My wheel is on an open porch, and the perfume from those trees is enough to make you a little drunk.  I can't say I wish I was going to be in NY for the mud season.

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I hope to become a reverse snowbird.  I've lived in FL for 35 years, but we recently bought an old farm way up at the top of NY, just a couple hours south of Montreal.  This winter, it didn't rise above freezing there for two and a half months.  I watched this from Florida, and it's helping us to make the decision to keep the house here.

Ray;

Went to grad school in upstate N.Y. at Alfred. Loved the weather there. I actually bought cross country skis while I was there and used them. I would live there in a minute, but no jobs  for me there.

TJR.

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For Tom (TJR) upstate New York winters are like winters in Florida for easterners.

Balmy 20 degrees with snow.

I do not like frozen ground.

I like my snow after it melts and gets warmed by the sun and drifts down to middle latatudes and washes up on a palm tree beach with tropical fish swimming in the water. Thats how I like my snow-anywhere between 25 degrees to zero degrees around the equator.My snow is best enjoyed in a swim suit that way.

Mark

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