Ice Rink #2

So there have been thoughts about whether or not to continue the rink. We are learning all the mistakes we’ve made so far.

1. We did not use a level part of the yard. When we dug up the garden in the fall I dug some leaves in, and one side of the garden is higher than the other. Also, we didn’t rototill it, so there were big chunks of dirt all over it. We have a lot of clay in our garden and I’ve been attempting to add more composting materials (like leaves and grass clippings) to make it better dirt.

2. We didn’t put a tarp or any sort of plastic barrier down before adding the water. I had read and been told that all I needed to do was pack down the snow and then soak it, freeze the icy snow and that would be an okay base to work with. Uh... Ya.

3. After we packed the snow, soaked it and started trying to flood it, I re-read the instructions. It said to use 10 cm of snow to pack down. Oops. We cleared the garden, read that we needed to soak the snow, put some snow back in the “rink” and then packed it down. I’m pretty sure we didn’t use 10 cm.

So there was the thought, “At what point do we give up on the rink and just let the kids slide around on their snow disc?” Bruce did some flooding last night after Vespers and again before the liturgy this morning. So I went out when we got home to see the results. Well, it’s not a total waste. I can at least see a difference now. There are still holes in the ice, so I put some snow in those, and now we have the sprinkler on it on a fine mist to see what happens. I don’t know, at this point, if being stubborn is a virtue or just plain stupid.