[The Fishing Pollock]

As a pre disclaimer, I do like my neighbor. He is a nice guy even if he is a city boy fudgie . Now onto the story.....

My wonderful neighbor insisted on working on the ice rink. Lets flood it before we shovel out all the snow and freeze up the bank. Then try to shovel out all the slush leaving nice big lines of chunks of slush to freeze really good to the ice tonight. Can't wait to get a metal dirt shovel out tomorrow and try to scrape all that off the ice surface..........Of course there is a ton of water in it , about 3 inches with a good 5 inches that did exactly what I told him it would do 2 days ago without freezing up the banks first. Flowed right out under the bank causing the snow all around it to turn to mush right up to the bank making it nice and soft so ya go through to the bottom of the lake when ya walk on it. OF course instead of drilling the water supply hole on the side of the rink facing the middle of the lake with depth, lets drill it on the bank side about 20 foot from it so its all slush and sand and pump that onto the ice surface. But wait,,,,,, there's more!!!!!!!!! lets drill the holes , 4 of them, inside the rink for a 2nd try to flood it before it is ready to be flooded ....... We are headed out ice fishing walking by it and he is proudly telling me what he did as I'm walking by it to go fishing and I just said, well ,,,, I'll fix it up the right way tomorrow and just walked away...... Some people really should stop just taking over someone else's project because their grandkids want to skate on a lake one weekend. Nothing like screwing up my and Danna's 8 hours of hard work in blowing wind and snow to make an ice rink for everyone to enjoy by next weekend. Now it won't be fixed , if I can even fix it , for at least 2 weeks.

 

[Lever4ever]

So he pumped sandy water onto the rink surface, sounds like you should buy a skate sharpening jig and charge him $5 each time the kids skates dull-off.
Not on a lake, but when we flooded our rink we hooked up a hose to the house hot water tank and flooded the surface with hot water, initially melts the bad lifts and excessive bumps, then freezes like a sheet of glass. filled 55 gallon drums and did a massive water dump all at once.

 

[ih772]

Make him come out and fix it with you. At least he'll learn where he messed up and he can do all of the grunt work.

 

[The Fishing Pollock]

Yeah, That's what I was planning on doing after I took a big chem hand pump sprayer out there and misted the bank a few times to freeze it up and to the ice surface to make a bowl that would hold water when ya flooded it. Now all the banks that didn't get re-cut and packed a little bit have long fingers of drifts across the rink and when it flooded the bank just melted down to almost nothing. IT was a 2 foot high bank around it to help hold in pucks when someones playing hockey.I have an external spigot for my hot water heater on the house and enough lawn hose to put a few final spray coats on the rink to make it smooth'ish after the banks were set and froze and it got a good flooding or 2.

 

[The Fishing Pollock]

He is going home tomorrow morning IH. Thank god. I would rather just do it myself since it's my project and he won't listen to anything anyhows. He sure didn't yesterday when he came out to help my shovel it off from the drifts and I told him what needed to happen to it to make it right.

It is on public property, which makes it everyones to use, but damm. Why screw up someones hard work because your trying to rush a job just so your grandkids can use it that day. Wouldn't it be much smarter to come up another weekend and use it when it is properly built and fun to skate on. Ya know.

 

[Lever4ever]

just a suggestion and may be something you already see, but when we sprayed the surface it would be bumpy if it's in the teens or less at night. But if we mass dumped the water in multiple 55 gallon drums it would come out almost indoor rink quality. hope you get that rink going!!

 

[The Fishing Pollock]

Oh yeah, I'm planning a mass dump. The spraying is just to spray the bank around it to put a layer of ice off the surface up the sides of the rink making a bowl effect that will hold water when I flooded it.

 

[eyepod]

 

[BILC]

Brings back memories of my early days. We had a pond maybe sixty feet from a river. If the pond froze when the river was higher then there was a larger pad of ice. When the river dropped so did the ice on the pond. The pond was probably 175 by 75. It was a lot of work to have good ice for hockey and skating. Dad had a pump pulling water from the river and we would flood the ice. The bumps from the snow we would knock off with a wide piece of sharp steel on a handle. I swear that all the neighbor kids would climb trees and watch us clearing snow and show up when the ice was ready . Have a lot of good and couple bad memories from skating. Dad cut some wood and built a fire for us to stay warm and the only problem was that it had poison ivy on it. Another thing that happened was a good friend and neighbor was chasing me on the ice and we both fell at the same time and he fell on the back of my figure skate with his eye making contact with it. He got up and yelled saying that I poked his eye out. His brother who is six years older than me grabbed me and asked what I did to him? I did nothing. He could still see light in that eye and recovered. A hairline closer and he would have lost that eye. As I got older I moved on to hockey skates.

 

[The Fishing Pollock]

Well being the OCD perfectionist I am, can't sleep because this is bothering me so much ,I just went out there to walk around it. Around 2 of the holes that got drilled are PILES of sand. Now I get to use my spud and chip all that sand up from the ice and refill that spot to level it back out. Burying it in ice won't work. There is literally a 50 foot circle layer of sand embedded in the lake ice. What's left of the berm around it has gotten rock hard and because of the water running right under the berm. There is no snow around it anymore to build it back up. Best I will be able to do is scrape some up and try to pile it up and wait for a good snow storm again. Seems I will be starting all over again from scratch.

So I have gone from this nice cleared out 100 x 60 rink

To this total mess

 

[Petronius]

Well being the OCD perfectionist I am, can't sleep because this is bothering me so much ,I just went out there to walk around it. Around 2 of the holes that got drilled are PILES of sand. Now I get to use my spud and chip all that sand up from the ice and refill that spot to level it back out. Burying it in ice won't work. There is literally a 50 foot circle layer of sand embedded in the lake ice. What's left of the berm around it has gotten rock hard and because of the water running right under the berm. There is no snow around it anymore to build it back up. Best I will be able to do is scrape some up and try to pile it up and wait for a good snow storm again. Seems I will be starting all over again from scratch.

So I have gone from this nice cleared out 100 x 60 rink

View attachment 635779

To this total mess

Thinking about a power washer hooked up to the hot water line to wash it away.

 

[The Fishing Pollock]

I would but it will be easier to just chip out a inch or 2 of ice with my old spud and shovel it out of there. I wont be able to get the sand out over whats left of the berm and probably just wind up spreading it around. Plus id have to drain the entire pump and hose system after I already winterized it.

 

[ih772]

Your neighbor deserves a kick in the nuts.

 

[RDS-1025]

Maybe you should just make your own private ice rink.

 

[The Fishing Pollock]

I wish I could RDS . Unfortunately it is on a lake so anyone can use it, but that does not mean anyone can just "do whatever work they feel is right" on it. Decided to just bust up the berm, whats left of it, in the morning and move it out about 5 feet farther to keep the sand areas out of the rink surface. The really bad part is I had intended to put my permy shack out tomorrow, but can't do that now as the shoreline ice out to the rink edge as it is now, is totally soft with a double layer of ice with a few inches water between it. I broke through all over it between shore and the rink edge this evening. Which means my shack will go straight through and get stuck pushing it out until all that double layer freezes back up.

 

[Big Hoss]

Sit him down, and explain everything you do, and the reason for it, as well as his misstep(s). Sounds like he's motivated, just ignorant on the process. If you do it right, he'll be making your rink for you next year.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Michigan Sportsman mobile app

 

[The Fishing Pollock]

Unfortunately that will not work Hoss. I could talk to him till I was blue in the face and he would not care. This is how I know this to be true.

2 days ago when I started making the rink he came out to help shovel off some snow and I told him it will not be ready to flood out for about a week till i got the berm iced in. He told me that didn't matter and he wanted to flood it. I told him absolutely not until it is ready. He said it only mattered to get his grandkids out skating because they were coming up this weekend., which they could have done even though it had not been flooded yet. Would have been a touch bumpy but completely skateable. I was not at home when he started punching holes in it and filling it with sandy water. I didn't get home till he was all done.

 

[The Fishing Pollock]

This is just a small area of of the sand mixed into the ice

 

[#1wallygator]

This is just a small area of of the sand mixed into the ice
View attachment 636199

I would leave it alone till his family leaves, hopefully they complain about the crappy rink and he gets the hint. Probably not tho. I know I wouldnt put any more labor in it till then.

 

[GRUNDY]

I would just leave it totally alone. He sounds real smart. He'll figure it out. Then come over and tell you how to do it right.

Fudgie style brah!