Hey everyone. I am in Nebraska. The weather is wreaking havoc on my rink. I made sure to rake all my leaves but some of my neighbors have neglected to do the same yearly maintenance on their yards.

The problem I am having is that we have had high winds the last week or so and warmer weather (34F to 56F). The leaves keep getting in my rink and freezing over night. I have leaves all over! Some are a 1/2in. or more under the ice and the leaves are getting stuck around the boards. I can't keep up with getting the leaves off the ice in a timely manner.

I want to cover the rink with an extra liner to keep the leaves off but if it snows I have a headache to get snow off and possible freezing of the cover to the ice. The leaves are making holes in my ice and thin ice in spots. Any ideas?

Thanks ahead of time!

I hear you. Leaves are definitely the bane of our existence. Despite my perhaps OCD tendency to suck up every stray leaf that falls in my yard every fall, there's nothing you can do about your neighbors, lol.

I've been trying to come up with a similar solution for a couple of years and unfortunately, I have yet to come up with a good one. If one's rink was small enough, I was thinking that a roll of bird barrier netting (seen it used on golf courses and berry farms) stretched and secured over one's rink would do a nice job of keeping at least the larger leaves out (roughly 1" mesh). Would allow air to pass through and not retain any heat like a solid film or liner would.

Only problem would be how to support it across the whole span of one's ice as you don't want any of it to come in contact with the ice surface to freeze in on warm days or get snowed over which would make it hard to remove.

If I can figure out a support system, that is what I intend to try using on my 32x80 rink as I've seen that stuff sold in 50 x 100 dimensions.

Short of that, I bought some white "ice paint" from the folks at NiceRink last season. I have used that to cover up some of the more pesky leaves and then resurface over a few times. That does a good job, but is intended more for just a few leaves here and there...is a real pain to try to cover up half a tree's worth (like I had to try doing last year). Think their ice-paint is just a white acrylic paint, however so might be able to find something similar at Michaels or other craft store.

-Magnus

hmmmm.......not a bad idea. Perhaps if I could find some longer scrap boards 1x1's to hash together the width of the rink. Mine is only 24' this year. It was 63 degrees today so I took the house and washed the ice like I would when I clean my driveway. Started at one end and sprayed the leaves out of the ice all the way to the other end. I have some gaping holes in the ice but is suppose to be a low of 32 today and 25 the rest of next week. I will flood it and hope the holes fill it with out making too much of a problem. I will let you know. Thanks for the advice.

Good luck- hopefully that hosing off at least cleared up some of the debris for you. I've blasted my ice surface with the pressure washer before trying to get stubborn leaves and pine needles pried loose with limited success. Mostly I felt that I was at least trying to do something, not sure how effective it actually was, but made me feel less helpless. :-)

Yeah, I agree with the netting...check Florida Nets on ebay (google it if need be). Get some 2-3' tall, then use yard stakes to run the span of your rink. Shouldn't cost much at all. Of course, tough to do at this point in the season, but maybe for next year. Or maybe offer to clean up your neighbor's yard in the fall for some cash or in exchange for some ice time :)

I have maple and pine trees all around my rink. No matter what you do you are going to end up with leaves, those maple copter-seeds or pine needles all over. I pick up what I can and those that I can't get a healthy dose of water over top of them. A couple of skates later and you don't even see the leaves. As the season draws to a close and the sun is stronger during the day, those leaves will resurface in a pool of water at which point I pick them out and let the water freeze (hopefully).

I know I was way more diligent about removing leaves when I first started building a rink but now I'm more partial to sitting by the warm fire in the basement instead of on my hands and knees picking leaves out of my ice.