Got me a mixture of fluffy snow on top with frozen snow on the ice and then because it
rained last week the ice is not smooth right now it's really crumbly some big cracks opened up
so i'm trying to get some soft snow packed down into the cracks and then water it learned that
from a canadian guy on youtube last year keeping his kids ice rink done because if i water the rink
all the water will just go right down the crack into the lake so you got to get like a little seal
and then i'm deciding whether i'm just going to come down and try to give it a little uh
backwood zamboni or flood the whole thing rinks are a lot of work just like winter backpacking
in this situation i just kind of go down first and i just start
shoveling sort of a grid system just go across willy-nilly and then i just have these little
piles so later when i get out the big shovel i won't have a ton of snow to move and then lift
that seems to work best plus i do like a little shoveling it's a good little
workout feels good to be down here there's just nothing like it at 9 30 in the morning
my coyote is down here this morning
perhaps i will approach him
come on
and these are some of the big cracks i'm trying to fill and what happens is your skate blade
goes in there and then that's not good on the old knees so what you start doing is
packing it in with snow like that and i got to really come down and pack it
and then wet it all with really ultra warm almost hot water let that freeze up
here's what i'm down to the ice has a real crust on it it's not totally glassy
and then a big white crack right there i have several of these running through
the ice that i'm gonna come down and water them i gotta work on this area right here
but it's getting there now i got my sprayer full of hot water now what i do
is i go along these cracks i've packed and i spray this hot water on there
it's a thin coat and you know have some little holes like that i'll have to come back and patch
and that's the technique to get these frozen over a bit and then i'll flood the whole rink
so yeah again the theory is fill these cracks with some snow freeze it over
then when i flood this whole thing the water should not run down through and into the lake
there is my patch city kind of looks like when you uh put blacktop on your driveway and fix
the cracks but i've gone over all of them here everyone i could see these are some of the bigger
ones and i've cleaned off as much snow as i can get or really want to then i'm going to
bring down my little pump i'm going to get the ice auger out drill a hole in the lake right over here
drop my little flow pipe out crank that little pump up bring all my hose down and flood this
as smoothly as i can at this point anything will do i am not a good ice skater i have
been learning to ice skate better the last two years this year i'm better than last year i'm
certainly not great but i kind of got my backwards going now but i'm so far from good but it's fun
it's just fun to come down here and glide on the ice and it's right in front of the house
all right got my pump got my water to prime the pump
got my 50 feet of hose
get my pump over here
put this down into the lake
now
time to prime it
and by that i mean
i bring some water down and i gotta fill this up
that top back on this chansey
and uh get this thing fired up
still go around and seal the edges first
so then after i do all that then i'll start filling from one corner all the way back
all right getting there
it looks like a pretty good coat now i gotta let that dry overnight yank this
out before it freezes up drag my hose up and get the water out of it before it freezes up
get me up there before i freeze up woo buddy then probably give it a little uh zamboni tomorrow
that's kind of your homemade zamboni it's just some pvc and it has holes kind of going down it
like that nothing too high-tech it's just very very low-tech and um i saw the guys
tying a towel on it and you hook your hose on it and then you just drag that over the ring
and then do an area and you got to kind of keep moving it'll get frozen and stuck and then
just keep dragging puts a smooth coating on the ice so i might do that tomorrow we'll see give
it tonight to see how it really sets up and then i usually have to go down there and kind of uh chunk
off some little chips you know where i'm dragging the hose there'll be some little ice just a little
ice bump and i go around and just knock those off and then it's good skating and then meg won't fall
and hurt her kneecap again she dresses up like a hockey goalie but at this age we're both 63
we wear our helmets because we've had some friends with some pretty bad head injuries and uh you know
ice feels pretty good this morning it looks crumbly but it's very smooth right on top
it's it's it's a very exact science working on an ice rink but it's about
7 30 in the morning it is about 14 degrees with a wind here's my big crack right here
i need to get a little bit more water on top of that right here
i've got a little a little bump in the ice just sticks up uh enough to
enough to maybe knock meg over and i don't want that take this shovel
a clown cannot resist
all right
feels pretty good
the cracks are locked up i don't even think i need to zambonia
i know you're wanting to see that but uh i'll film it whenever i do but
i'm sure i really need to maybe tomorrow but it's going to be too windy today
i ain't no brian botano
but this is something that i know but i will come down to the lake every day
i will skate and i will go go go
benny winnie
hey you gonna pee in my hammock spot
you look so nice in your skull sweater bean can you smile for
the camera give me your bean pump hi there hello hello mr camera shy garbine come in
buddy