Broken-down Bricks

The crazy, cold winter we had did quite a number on our front steps this year. They started to crack around the end of February, and by the time we got back from Texas in April it looked like there'd been a shark attack.

On Sunday, Tom grabbed a couple of the largest pavers they had at Home Depot in the hopes that they would fit. This was just a quick fix until we can decide what we want to do permanently with the front walkway. The cold weather had also heaved the bricks of the sidewalk so it's a bit of a rollercoaster right now and will all have to be redone.

The top bricks are glued to the bottom ones, so he had to chip the broken ones out piece by piece. The bricks just crumbled away, so it was probably time to replace them anyway.

Unfortunately the new bricks were too thick. They were also a bit too short, but that wouldn't have been that much of a problem, we just wanted to reduce the tripping hazard of the missing bits. But with them too high, the chance of tripping is now increased. Especially for me, the clumsiest person on earth (I have an award and everything).

So now we had a big gap in the steps and no way to fill it. Yesterday was a holiday here in Ontario, so all of the stores were closed. I crawled under the back deck looking for spare bricks, but Tom - in a burst of efficiency - had taken them all up to his father's empty lot. Instead we had to use a deck board left over from when we rebuilt the back deck, some plywood, and then a 1 inch thick board to make up the depth.

Classy, isn't it? He screwed it all together so that nothing would shift, and we now have the most redneck front entrance in the neighbourhood. If only we had an old washing machine to put out on the porch. J

Fiddleheads, Fiddleheads

It's fiddlehead season in southern Ontario (or in the northeast - depending on where you are). I've read that people in California can pay up to $20 a pound for this tasty vegetable! Aren't we lucky to get them for a tenth of that price - if not for free. A friend of ours has them growing wild right on his property, so he gave us two ziploc bags full this past week.

Have you tried fiddleheads? They taste something like asparagus, but are actually the curled up frond heads of the fiddlehead fern plant. They're only available for a couple of weeks in the spring, so you have to be fast!

It's important when preparing fiddleheads to wash and cook them thoroughly. You can get really sick from eating raw or lightly-cooked fiddleheads. We washed ours, then boiled them for 8-10 minutes. After that we sauteed them in garlic, butter, and hot sauce, and ate them with lemon pepper sole (and some berries for colour).

It's been many, many years since I had fiddleheads, and then it was in soup, so I'd forgotten how good they taste.

How do you like to prepare your fiddleheads?

Photo Gifts - Let's Get Artistic

I took some pictures of my aunt's little fluff of a dog at Christmas time and decided to give my aunt a framed copy of the best one for her birthday (which was yesterday).

This is the original picture. Her name is Desi and she's a Coton de Tulear. Cute, right? She's over-the-top friendly and happy all the time. She has this way of flashing a smile, front teeth on display, that's just hilarious.

While this picture was great, I'd recently downloaded a couple of artistic photoshopping iPhone apps that I wanted to try out.

The first one is called Waterlogue. I've written about it before, and it's really fun. There are different settings depending on how intense you want the colours to be, or how much detail you want to show. I find that it doesn't capture people's faces very well, but for animals & scenery it's terrific.

Here is Desi "waterlogued":

The second app is called Artist's Sketch. Pretty self-explanatory, it turns a photo into a black and white pencil sketch. The options are a bit limited right now, but I really like just the basic one anyway.

Here is Desi "sketched":

Great detail on the fur, isn't there? The sketch was definitely my favourite so that's the one I went with.  I found a grey and black fabric photo frame at Target and had her gift ready just like that. I also printed out the other two pictures and put them behind the first one, so she can change it out if she wants to.

I also tried my hand at making a pillow box for the first time. It took two tries, but it isn't bad. It was a bit hard because of the size - I couldn't print out a template big enough so I had to freehand a lot of it.

And the only thing large enough I had on hand was plain white poster board. I love how Rebecca at Older & Wisor makes them from leftover cereal or pop boxes. I will definitely try that when I need a smaller one in the future.

Have you used these two phone apps yet? What do you think of them? Are there other ones that you like better? What about gift boxes? Do you recycle what you have or buy new ones?