The Fat Lady Sings...

 And I sold the rink the other day...

 It comes with a lot of mixed emotions... The good times... the frustrations... the blood, sweat and tears of the creation and maintenance... Of the joyful laughter of the kids (and adults) skating and playing hockey.

 Life moves on, and sometimes not for the better.   Due to a change in real life circumstances, it was time to clear out the backyard and find someone else who could put all that equipment to good use.  A couple of the boards had started to rot, but the majority of it was still in great shape (if only needing a good pressure washing)

 I'm glad it's found a new home. 

 I have no doubt the new owner will put it to good use, and that the boards I've passed on have been infused with some of that youth and laughter that was once heard in the cold winter months in my backyard.

2011-2012 Rink

 So October is nearly here... and I think I've made a decision...

 To *not* build my rink this year...  For a couple of reasons.

 The biggest one being that my girlfriend of 5 years and I broke up due to... well, whatever.  She moved out in July, and with her went her 7 yr old son who was the main user of the rink the past couple of years (except for last year when I didn't have one either). 

 The second is that my daughter is now almost 14 years old...  Doesn't really do 'that stuff' anymore...

 So that's a lot of work AND a lot of money to do something that would be used maybe a half dozen times during the year.

 It makes me very sad on a couple of fronts, most being the dissolution of my relationship.

Finished the cleanup...

 So I took down the boards the other day after hauling the tarp to the dump... 

 Next year, I'll make sure it's done RIGHT.

 /sign.

An Unmitigated Disaster

 /frustrated

 So there was a hole in the liner... AT least one... 

 I had tried to do another fill, with the same result...  I noticed a small orange wiffle ball under the tarp in the middle of the rink... I had to make the hole larger to get it out and repaired it with multiple strips of duct tape.

 Another fill, same result - so the liner itself might have a defect in it somewhere... somewhere I just can't find.

 The rink is now 7" deep with snow.  I had thought about watering the top of the snow - getting that to freeze then flooding over it.   After trying to do that with 2 applications of water of incredibly cold days, I've given up....

 The liner was $160.  I can't afford to drop that kind of cash around Christmas time again...  Others on the Yahoo board suggest going back to Home Depot and see if they can swap it out...  That may be my only option at this point...

/frustrated

*Grrrrrr*

 So it was nice and cold on Saturday morning...  I stopped in at Home Depot to see if the liners were in for the rink... Luckily enough, they were...  but they'd raised the price of the 40x60 to $149 this year!  Freakin scammers!

 Got it home, and Hannah helped me put it down... Got the water running....  It filled and filled and filled...  I had a feeling that it was leaking somewhere, but there was no evidence of it anywhere.  

 Left it filling overnight.   Woke up this morning, and it was at  the same level... Checked again, and the area by the cement path was submerged in 5" of water...

And it's snowing now, with the rink 1/4 filled...  and I"m leaving for work reasons for a week in a few hours.

 NOT the start I wanted to have.  :S

Side boards

Are up!  (No picutres - I think you've seen enough of that!)

 Chainlink fence along that side is up as well and secured...

 I'm not going to make the same mistake that I did last year - Putting up the end boards BEFORE laying the liner... That just caused all sorts of problems trying to do it that way.

 So I'll go back to my regular way of base boards, then liner and filling it up - once frozen THEN I'll put up the boards...

 Temps still +10 some days here, so it may be a couple more weeks


 - k

New "boards"

 So my (ex) girlfriend has a dog named Bella that she brought into the home as a 'surprise' when we were first living together.

Odds are, I'll be keeping her when she moves...  And I'm getting tired of putting her on the chain everytime, so I figured I'd put up a chain link fence...  Which, coincidentally will run right along side my rink... kind of giving the once side of it a new "board" to keep players and pucks on the ice...

 Just a thought.