need zamboni

I put some more water on the rink this weekend – about another six buckets. It seems to be working okay. Some parts are fairly smooth and others are quite bumpy. I am hoping that more layers will even out some of the less-bumpy parts.

We got Gee’s skates sharpened and she actually went out on the rink and tested it out. She was able to skate around a bit and we didn’t have to drive her anywhere so it’s certainly been worthwhile so far.



Hmm, I wonder if I used a mop and hot water would it smooth out some of the lumps. I may have to add a few more rounds of layers before I try it. It may be one of those proof-of-concept ideas that may or may mot work.

Ice to see you

When I checked on the rink on the weekend, I was pleased to find that the part I had done had frozen relatively level. Inspired by this I had finished wetting down the other half and pouring a few more buckets on top of the back half. It's not going to be a huge rink - only about 12 - 15 feet around, but it should be sufficiently large enough to practice on.

Now I am concerned that we may actually get a warm day tomorrow. It's supposed to rise to 1 Celsius (about 274 Kelvin). Ideally, it should remain cool enough to remain frozen but warm enough to even out the surface.

ice weather

I poured about a dozen tall ice-cream buckets of water on the pool area. This only managed to wet down about half of the depression left by the pool. This will take a lot more water than I had thought. It wet through the snow and slushed up on the mud. I am hoping that it will freeze up overnight and allow my second and subsequent coats to fill in the area a bit more evenly.


If this doesn't work as I thought, I will stop without doing the entire area. I can now see why they usually flood the rinks with a hose. If this does works, maybe next year I will bring a hose inside to thaw the ice and use that to flood the rink.

That is, as long as the use of the rink outweighs the annoyance in making the rink.

snow fun

The weather held until last week. We have had a beautiful November so far and then got hit by a blanket of snow - 42 cm of snow in fact. Our entire snowfall last winter was only 80 cm. (For those of you who don’t understand metric, we had about two and a half feet of snow last winter and have already received a foot and a half so far.
Even though most of it has fallen in a little over a week, it hasn’t been too bad. It has been the light, fluffy snow that is easy to shovel instead of the wet, sticky that is a pain to shovel (but great for snowmen). It has come down in dumps of less than 10 cm a day – which means it didn’t overwhelm us. As long as we shoveled, we were able to keep on top of it.

My daughter has started building her ice-slide in the front yard. She did one last year as well. A three or four foot rise was enough to slide her the length of the front yard. She even had a few bends and a landing area.

Also, after the first dusting of snow, I moved the pool to the side and put away the other tarp. This will hopefully allow us to create a small rink in the depression in the back. Then, when my daughter feels that she must skate, we can just send her out back instead of going to the park every time. I’ve been toying with making one for a few years so we’ll see how it turns out and how much trouble it is.