My brother-in-law called today at 4:30 and asked if I would be interested in helping him out. He wanted me to come out to the lake and plow some snow on the frozen lake to make a rink for my nephews to skate and play hockey. I’m not originally from MN and have exactly zero experience with making an ice rink so I thought this could be pretty fun. The whole idea of this is to make some very smooth ice to skate on rather than the cracked and heaved ice that covers the lake.

I hadn’t had time to put the stock wheels back on for this Winter’s plowing yet and the Reptiles just don’t really have good snow traction for plowing, so I swapped the wheels and loaded the Griz on the trailer. I was only plowing about 4-5 inches of snow but it still took a while as I could only take about half a blade worth of snow without spinning or sliding sideways on the ice due to the angled plow. My nephews really enjoyed riding along as I plowed and their Dad ran the snowblower to make the shape he wanted the rink to be. Eventually, we got it cleared and began drilling holes to run the pump to flood the rink. It was really fun watching the water flow and freeze right before my eyes at 7 degrees fahrenheit. His boys were very excited and it was really fun to watch from the perimeter as the memories were made. We will go back tomorrow to see how the ice turned out. Who knows, I might even throw on a pair of skates and see how it goes.

Here are a couple of pictures of the action. It was very rewarding to see the great lengths that my brother-in-law went to to create a special experience for his boys. They are going to grow up to be great Dads themselves one day, and no doubt, great hockey players.

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