Ice Rink and the Giant Balls of Plastic

This yard's backyard rink was a gamble due to el Nino.  A gamble that we should not have taken.  We only got a single day of skating in.  It really was no one thing that destroyed the season, but the weather sure did not help.  The first issue was injuries and time.  My son took a crosscheck to the back in early fall that tore up his shoulder.  It took awhile to heal so the rink went up late.  Since he has grown we went really big this year.  80 feed by 40 feet.  That was one large (and expensive) piece of 6mm plastic!  We got it put up no problem and got it filled but the cold weather did not come.  Then hockey season started in full force and he was on a league that traveled to Michigan (we live in Illinois) virtually every weekend.  So time was limited; not that the ice was really that skatable.  Too soft and thin because it was too warm.  Things started looking up in mid-January the day after he finally got a skate in, we lost all the water under the ice.  MOLES.  The ground never really froze very hard and they chewed through the liner in multiple places to get at the water.  I hope the little shits drowned in the resulting tsunami. In one day they completely destroyed a $300 liner.  In the end, it didn't matter that much though because that weekend he took another illegal hit and broke his fingers so skating with stick was off the table again.  Plus it never really got cold enough after that to give us good ice.  We had more than one wading in waders session, cleaning leaves out of the pond. 

So yesterday was clean up the carnage day.  I would have liked to use the liner again for at least another year but it was a total loss, too many mole holes.  People think that leaving plastic on the yard over winter kills the grass.  It does not.  The grass under the liner actually greens up faster than the rest of the lawn.  If you leave the boards on the lawn too long you will get some grass kill but not enough to be able to see it a few weeks later.  This year we did have some actually damage though.  Mole tunnels.  The paved them under the boards and they were very busy.  Ice rink put away is the only think I really don't like about backyard rinks.  The boards are no big deal but man handling that ginormous piece of plastic that gets kind of slimy over the winter is not so much fun.  So this year I decided the kiddo was big enough to do it solo!  And he did.  He is 80% done.  Observe and admire.  On other blogs you get lovely tulips and daffodils.  At Mutiny in the Garden you get a yard full of giant plastic balls!
Oh well, at least the grass is getting green.