Putting the Rock in the House -- Part II

The most interesting thing about curling was the stone. Did you know the stone is made out of real stone? A curling rock is made out granite found underwater off the coast of Scotland (well, the best curling rocks come from there). The granite is mined during low-tide and then shaped. Each rock weighs 42 pounds and they cost about $600 each. The Duluth Curling Club has some of the finest rocks around (or so they say).

Another observation. The ice is not slippery at all. After the ice is cleaned (with a Zamboni type machine), it is sprinkled with water, which creates these little pebbles on the ice surface. For those of you who know the tale (pun intended) of my close encounter with ice, this was happy news.

Okay...so let's curl. To curl you need several thing:

warm sweater or light jacket (duh!)
clean rubber soled shoes (no grit in this ice)
1 rubber gripper (to be placed on your dominant foot's shoe)
1 silicon slider (to be placed on your non-dominant foot's shoe)
1 broom
1 rock
1 sheet of ice

First off, I practiced sliding with the broom as my support, just to get the pose right. It was hard to keep balanced after I pushed off, but it worked. The silicon slider is the only way curlers can really slide on the ice. The silicon makes it extremely slippery. This is why curlers wear a rubber gripper on one foot. Two silicon sliders would be a disaster.


After that we practiced sliding from the hatch with the broom. It's still hard to balance. Must. Strengthen. Quads.

Next I slid out of the hatch with two stones (one in each hand). Much better to balance with, but now I had 84 pounds dragging me down the ice. Those little ice pebbles began to hurt my knee as this point.

After I got the hang of two stones, I moved to one stone and a broom. I held the broom in my non-throwing hand, and used it only to help my balance. I was really leaning into the broom to keep myself upright. I fell a couple of times during this part, but overall it wasn't too bad. It's at this point I learned how to release the stone. The stone is released before you start decelerating. At this point, you find out why the sport is called curling. When a rock is thrown, you give it a very slight turn (a curl), either to the right or left, just before you release the stone. Hence the name curling.


The object of curling is to get as close to the "bullseye" as possible. The ringed area is called "the house". This is where it gets tricky. Each "end" (think inning) of curling consists of eight throws by each team. There are 8 ends (innings) in one game of curling. Only one team can score during each end. The closest stone to the center earns one point. If the team with the closest stone has the next closest stone, they earn another point, and so on. If the second closest stone is the opponents stone, then the scoring team only gets one point. It is possible to earn eight points in an end if your team has all of its eight stones in the house and the other team has none closer than your eight. Does that make sense? Scoring eight in one end is a huge deal in curling.

So the object is to get your stones in the house, while knocking out your opponents stones at the same time.

There are four positions in curling: Lead, Second, Third and Skip

During throws 1-2: lead throws, second & third sweep, skip skips
During throws 3-4: second throws, lead & third sweep, skip skips
During throws 5-6: third throws, lead & second sweep, skip skips
During throws 7-8: skip throws, lead & second sweep, third skips

The sweeping is done to increase the speed of the stone. Sweeping encourages micro-melting, increasing the stone's speed. Good sweepers can increase the length of a throw by about 15 feet. This was really hard for me. A couple of times the stone passed right by me and it was very hard to catch up to.

A friendly end against the group of newcomers was great fun. We won on our last throw by Rory, who got his last throw right in the center of the house.

So I am going to be starting in the new comers curling league. Just like a bowling league, but on ice.

Putting the Rock in the House -- Part I

To.Tired.To.Write.. Stay tuned for an exciting account of my experience at the Duluth Curling Club's curling clinic. It was great! We took lots of digital pictures (thanks Jodi!). The most intersting thing about curling was ......

Dawn or Don?

This post will be about the deer in my life. As you may or may not know, we live on 6 acres outside of Duluth, and so deer are a regular occurrence in our life. It's a love/hate relationship.

When I arrived in July, it was quite apparent that deer had been having their ways with the hostas in the front of the house. I never saw one leaf on those plants all summer. I hope they can come back in the spring without being able to store energy. In the attempts to keep the deer out of the garden to the north of our house, I even used something called Liquid Fence (Who Let the Skunks Out) to keep the animals away. Although it didn't work with the skunk, it seemed to keep the deer out of the north garden. This is part of the hate relationship with deer.

Did I mention that Bates loves deer poop? Oh yes, he does. It tastes excellent. Give him the chance and he will expertly rub his body all over it. So gross and provides Bates with an immediate "Go Directly to the Bathtub" pass. Definitely a part of the hate relationship with deer.

Spotting the deer is quite fun, and they are amusing to watch. The fawns are so awkward and carefree. They love to skip around, being silly when they can. One day, I was sitting on the porch while it was pouring and a little fawn came dancing out into the clearing. Bates quickly barked at the intruder, and the fawn hid in a stand of trees waiting for its mom. On another day, Clay and I were inspecting the pond, when we heard a loud crashing sound..and it was coming closer. I thought it was going to be my chance to finally see a bear. Clay and I stood motionless in strange poses (remember the freeze-bell in elementary school) while we waited for a monster to come out of the woods. And then we saw it. Another little fawn, stuck his head out of a bush. We stayed in our now painful positions holding our breath. Knowing something was definitely up, but not quite sure, the fawn sniffed the air and stomped its feet for a minute or so. Then without warning, and finally realizing we were to be avoided, the fawn spun around and ran off. This is the love relationship with deer.

We have been referring to a mom and her twin fawns as Dawnie and the Fawns. Of course, I could never pick out Dawnie and the Fawns from a line-up, but it's nice to have a connection. I have seen them on the way to work eating in someone's yard, or bounding across the road. Now that I have given these deer name, I am worried that they may find themselves at the wrong end of an arrow. This year, Duluth has allowed bowhunting in the city limits. This is quite a rare event, but there are so many deer, the city needed to do something about it. Although I agree there is a deer problem, this doesn't prevent me from sighing with relief when I see Dawnie and the Fawns. Knowing they are safe for one more day gives me comfort. At least they didn't meet the fate of the poor ornamental deer that some people have in their yards ;)

This morning, we saw the Fawns (we think) with a buck. So did he steal the fawns from Dawn? Or was Dawn really a Don. The antlers were small, but still impressive. He was right, I mean right, under the kitchen window. I took a picture with the digi, but the low batteries meant it didn't write to the disk. But I have added a picture to show you how close the deer get. You might need to make the picture larger, because taking the picture through the screens of the porch distorted the image.

Current Temp: 38, Windchill 34

Places I've Been

I got this from Rory's blog.



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Our View of the Lake

Clay came in this morning and told me we had a view of Lake Superior from our property. Being suspicious, I pulled on my coat, hat and shoes before heading outside. Clay took me about 100 yards into our woods, and on top of a small hill he pointed it out to me. I brought the camera, knowing it would be good blog material if it was true. So here, you can see the sun up in the sky, and a shining reflection just above the land directly under the sun. We have lake-view property. Don't tell the county assessor. :)

Fall Clean-up

Well, the weather is getting cooler here in Duluth. Last fall we weren't here for fall-cleanup, which is why I think our grass looked a little tattered this summer. Fall-cleanup consists of raking leaves, trimming back perennials, putting away garden accessories, etc.

As for the grass, we hadn't mowed in about a month, so it really needed it. And the leaves were starting to pile up. The bonus of mowing in the fall is you can mow right over the leaves and avoid the seemingly useless task of raking. Because we have so much yard area, I felt it would be more environmentally sound to mulch the leaves instead of putting them inside of bags. So I found some extension sites that talked about mowing over the leaves. It was a little windy, so it didn't work perfectly, but the lawn looks great, and now the leaves are broken up into small enough pieces they will just provide nutrients to the grass.

While Clay mowed/mulched, I worked in the gardens around the house. I basically got some of the leaves that were left over from last fall. Then I lost my mind and started to chop away at a day-lily. Clay pulled up and asked me what I was doing. After I determined I didn't know, I went back to just cleaning up the dead things. I guess I was so excited about cleaning up the garden I forgot I was only supposed to clean out the dead things. Oops.

Then it was time to move in the animals...the stone ornamental ones that came with the house. Last winter they were left out in the snow and cold and suffered the consequences. We lost one of our birdbaths (in fact we had so much snow I didn't even know we had two birdbaths). The small deer that Bates used to bark at when he first got here has numerous cracks. We moved them all into the small garage, along with the bench by the pond and all our concrete planters. We also took down the swings and took down all the hanging planters that never had anything in them (hmmm..project next year).

The patio was next. Now we have a tropical themed reading and radio listening room in the basement (thanks to our patio furniture moving inside). We completely emptied out the porch, except for the BBQ (can we use it during the winter?).

We are ready for winter, so let it come. I was getting anxious about all the things that needed to be done, but now that they are mostly done, I can sit by the fire and relax.

What's in your shuffle?

I got this from Mandie's Journal.

1. Copy these instructions and post them into a new entry.
2. Open up the music player on your computer (or turn on your MP3 player).
3. Set it to play your entire music collection.
4. Hit the shuffle command.
5. Tell us the title of the next ten to twenty songs that show up (with their musicians), no matter how embarrassing. That's right, no skipping that Carpenters tune that will totally destroy your hip credibility. It's time for total musical honesty.
6. If you get the same artist twice, you may skip the second (or third, or etc.) occurrences. You don't have to, but since randomness could mean you end up with a list of ten song with five artists, you can if you'd like.

Here's my list...and obviously I didn't cheat.

Avalon Shores --John Tesh
Fantasia for a Gentleman, Adagio -- Goran Sollscher, etc.
Take Me Home -- Phil Collins
The Wheat -- Hans Zimmer & Lisa Gerrad (Gladiator soundtrack)
Bad Bad Leroy Brown -- Jim Croce
Nearer My God To Thee -- Eileen Ivers (Back to Titanic soundtrack)
Women 'Cross the River -- Linda Rondstadt
Unsung Psalm -- Tracy Chapman
Maui Hawaiian Sup'pa Man -- Israel Kamakawiwo'ole
One Clear Voice -- Peter Cetera
Into the Great Wide Open -- Tom Petty & the Heartbreakes
Once in a Lifetime -- Sarah Brightman
Vivere -- Andrea Bocelli
Hard to Say I'm Sorry -- Chicago
Ironic -- Alanis Morissette
What'll You Do About Me? -- Doug Supernaw

FYI...It's Snowing

Just wanted to let you know it is snowing right now. Barely, but it is snow. Current Temp: 39