So there’s good news and bad news.  First, the good.  I finally finished my home zamboni (henceforth known as the homeboni).  I can’t take credit for its design, but I did purchase and assemble the parts.  The result is a rather odd, albeit functional, device that allows me to connect a hose and lay down a thin layer of water over the ice.  The first time I used this was last night, successfully using it to smooth over the pretty awful ice surface that was left behind from the latest storm.

The bad?  I’m an idiot.  As much reading and researching and learning and discussing as I’ve done, somehow the principal of “hose in garage = frozen, useless hose” has eluded me.   After using the homeboni last night, I got lazy and lugged the whole setup in the garage.  With the sub-zero (literally, farenheit) temps lately, it should have been of no surprise to me that when I took the rig out earlier tonight, it was a frozen mess.  At first, I thought it was just my smaller 25′ hose that was frozen.  So I discarded it and hooked the homeboni up to my higher-quality 50′ hose.  That hose at least passed water through it, but as soon as it hit the PVC, it stopped.  The bottom half of the homeboni had some water in it when I put it “away” the night before, and that about finished my night.  I begrudgingly took the whole thing apart, accosted myself for my stupidity, and brought the whole setup into the downstairs tub to let it thaw.  I’m setting aside a bunch of time to skate this weekend and will plan on flooding once more this week.  And I’ll be sure to leave the hose in a more friendly location going forward.