Hanging Around Nordegg

Ryan and Braeden were out at Nordegg for a couple of days, at the beginning of December.  I came out and joined them, on the afternoon of the day they had to go back home.  After they left, I was on my own for the week.  I'd brought along a bunch of bruised and frozen apples that had fallen off our tree back home.  I left these out for the deer, and they enjoyed them, despite their condition.  Hunting season ended at the end of November, so they will soon be a lot less skittish.

I helped out my neighbor Tom, who volunteers to look after the rink in town every year.  One day we flooded the base that he had started, with 400 gallons of water, hauled in by another neighbor, Wayne.

A day or so later four of us pitched in and cleared a couple of inches of fresh snow off the rink and then gave it a light flood with the garden hose.  Then a day later, Tom and I gave it yet another quick flood.  That evening we put our skates on and rattled around for the first time of the season.  We used scrapers and knocked some of the lumps and ridge off of the ice.  It was still a little soft, because the temperature got up to well above zero that day.

I knew the Nordegg rink was smaller than official NHL size.  Most of the rinks that I play on in the city are official.... 85 feet wide by 200 feet long.  The one at Nordegg is 55 feet wide by 115 feet long.  So only 40% the size by area, 58% by length and 65% by width.  But I get it... most of the time we only get about ten to twelve guys out to play.... and its a lot less work to clear the snow and flood.

I've been battling a bad case of sciatica all week.  I've had mild incidents in the past, but nothing like this.  Its been bad all week, and the pain is constant.  I've been hopping myself up on advil and muscle relaxants, but nothing seems to help much.  I probably overdid things.... between shoveling snow, flooding the rink, climbing around out at the ice bubbles, and then skating, I think I made it worse.  I'm resting it for a day, hoping it improves.

Margarit was going to come out for a few days, but cancelled because the road conditions turned kind of ugly on the 5th.  So I remain out by myself.  My jukebox technician was also going to head over, but he had to postpone as well.  So it is a quiet and relaxing but rather painful few days for me....