I know most people around me are pining for the days that they can unpack their patio furniture, however, I'm elated that I can still strap on the blades and go for a skate in the evening. The ice is pretty soft in the afternoon with the heat of the sun but once the sun starts setting the ice is pretty good. How many of us are still skating?

Here's a picture I took after flooding on Sunday morning:



Hope most of you are experiencing the same cold enjoyment as I am!

Cheers
Kev

Had our first skate on Thanksgiving night (November 28) and our last skate on St. Patrick's Day...Not sure we can ask for much more here in Chicago!


Couple of Vine Vids!
https://mtc.cdn.vine.co/r/videos/730D25 ... xPkGKICg_u

Overhead Shot!
vine.co/v/hlEjvwHEgad

Happy New Year's! CHEERS! https://vine.co/v/hYwQj6qqtg5

Took me a second to process that Thanksgiving in the U.S. isn't the second weekend in October. :-)

1st video is awesome, 2nd video fails.

Just Updated...

Thanksgiving in the US is usually the 3rd weekend in November....Lots of folks use Thanksgiving weekend as the "Setup weekend". Turkey on Thursday, Setup on Friday!

Yeah, I usually try and work from home that day to watch the football games. I always use my Thanksgiving weekend as setup weekend as well. It's usually warm and sunny so I can get most of the boards up and staked into the ground.

Yep, still skating in NH! Ice was great yesterday, going out again when my son gets home from school. Might be our last day...35 tomorrow, then 50's for the next few.

so jealous....I put a couple of holes in the tarp over the weekend....what a season.

Skated for 2 hours last night with my son. Amazing ice. Still have 4' of snow around my rink. Crazy what a little shade will do.

Our last skate was March 18th. That is pretty good for NE Ohio. I was holding out some hope that the brief cold spell this week would have allowed us one last skate and it nearly did. Unfortunately we got a little too much snow last night and it turned everything to slush. Forecast has us in the 50's for the foreseeable future. I do believe we are done.

Nonetheless, we got nearly double the ice time this year as compared to last year so it is hard to be disappointed. It was an epic year for ice here and there are no complaints.

To be completely honest, this old man (me) was actually starting to get a little worn down from nearly 4 months of constant ice maintenance when we would normally get only two months of ice.

I will now move on to focusing on next season's upgrades...

For those still skating, may your ice remain smooth until June.

For those like me, the memories will live on, in our kids minds forever, long after the ice has gone to liquid and evaporated away.

Last skate today. Was great. I was spoiled with this being the first year :)