Rink construction has begun. Slowed due to this snow, but I will be taking care of that tonight.

Next phase I am researching is lighting. I have several trees around the rink that would make for perfect hanging spots. Just curious how people might have gone about mounting them in the trees? Any thoughts and ideas welcome.

I get the cheapest halogens I can find, then disassemble the mounting arm a bit. Most have these adjustable arms that have a hole in them (to mount to a base). I remove the base and that leaves you with a hole to mount to a tree, fencepost, etc.



The black part on the bottom is the arm I'm talking about. The base (yellow part) I just toss. It looks like the one in this picture has 2-3 holes to use.

Yeah I was looking at the ones at Lowes they are like $13. CHEAP!

Are you screwing right into the tree? I was thinking about trying a ratchet tow strap thought it might be easy to mount that way. Just trying to come up with ideas.

I don't do the trees actually...I build on a tennis court with tall fencing, and use the top post of the fencing. I'm sure someone here uses trees, though.

I use the double version of those halogen lights - usually comes on a tripod:



I pack up the tripod and use the straight bar across that holds the two lights. That gets screwed onto the top of supported 12' high 4"x6" poles.

I've also screwed both lights onto a 2x6 mounted on a 2x4 which got screwed to the front of the 4x6.

I just bought two of these at Lowes - the 500W ones with the tripod were like $24. Lights up the yard pretty good.

I got two of those as well. Not super duper lightning, but enough to see the puck.

I have a street light which was hanging in a tree when I bought my house and a 500w halogen sitting up in another tree on the other side. Great lighting from the two of them.

@Chris - How are you mounting them in the tree?

I have 6 of the 500W lights - 4 on one side and 2 on the other. I always wave to the people in the planes as they are descending over my house to land at the Ottawa airport.