My wife Rita and I celebrated our 25th anniversary during COVID lockdowns. Rita always said she wanted a big rock for her anniversary. Not being able to travel we had some money for gifts and I decided to blow the budget and get her 16 rocks. We had seen a set of curling rocks on kijiji several years ago and regretted not buying them and have looked online ever since. Little did we realize that our home in London, Ontario is about 10 minutes from one of the two curling rock factories in the world – Curling Stone Canada, and they were selling used rocks from rinks who replaced theirs. We bought rocks and moved them to our cottage in Kenora, Ontario, on Black Sturgeon Lake. We found some old brooms online including a Rink Rat. We weren’t sure how well this would work but we shovelled off a rink, learned how to use a submersible pump to flood the ice, made a hack out of 2x4s, and Rita was able to paint rings on the ice. To make the paint environmentally friendly, she created a red dye by boiling beets in water, and for the blue rings, she boiled red cabbage (which amazingly turned blue). We had a great time curling in the 2022 lockdown and are back in Kenora planning an inaugural funspiel on the Family Day weekend with friends and neighbours. While we’ve swapped our sliders for knee pads, its great to be outside, even when it is -20.
