FARMINGTON — Creating a public ice-skating rink at Hippach Field each year is a challenge. This year is no exception.

While a crew from the town’s Recreation Department has diligently worked on the Dick Williams Memorial Skating Rink, recent weather changes have created the usual challenges, said Matt Foster, assistant recreation director.

“It’s coming fairly slow. We’ll open as soon as we can,” he said Tuesday, the day after a storm left the region covered in ice. “We always try for the first of January, but it’s always dependent on the weather.”

The department started flooding the rink last week, but daytime temperatures had not been cold enough to start a solid base, he said. The department also has faced decisions about whether it’s better to leave the light dusting of snow and crust to form the base, he said.

“As (Recreation Director Steve Shible) always says, ‘The ice rink is our big chemistry experiment,'” Foster said.

He said the department had also been hampered by a loss of field lights. A recent storm took down a pole behind the field’s basketball court, eliminating power to light the rink. It wasn’t safe to have a crew trying to work and flood the rink at night in the dark, he said.

The power was finally restored late last week.

abryant@sunjournal.com