Lace up your skates and enjoy an afternoon on your own backyard skating rink. Building one is easier than you think. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Find a level area in your yard as big or as small as you want the rink to be– vegetable gardens make great winter skating rinks.
2. Make a rectangular border around the skating area. You can use scrap lumber or bank up snow along the edges of the rink.
3. Once the temperature is cold enough for freezing to occur, use your garden hose and seal the ground with a light spray of water. Once this has frozen, spray the rink lightly (5-10 times), allowing it to freeze between each spraying.
4. Maintain the rink by removing snow promptly and fill in cracks by packing with slushy snow and lightly re-flooding the rink.