GURLEY – Fanny’s Fruit Farm has a new reason to visit. 

Recall the days of ice skating at their ice-skating rink. 

“Since I lived in Sidney most all my life, we skated all the time in the winter down at Legion Park,” said Beth Kokjer. 

She said that all changed when the flood control methods were constructed in Sidney. 

She said her family started going to Cheyenne when they wanted to go ice-skating. After considering the distance to Cheyenne, she decided to build her own at Fanny’s Fruit Farm. 

“So I built two of them last year. They were smaller. And so, it was a good run to do that, but it was 67 degrees, in January for five days. It was the warmest winter on record, I think for the planet.” 

The challenge is maintaining an adequate amount of ice when temperatures are unseasonably warm. 

“I have to have four inches of ice, or you can’t do it,” she said. 

She said the first year, there was ice, and then the temperatures were in the 50s during the week of Christmas and she lost all of it.  

The new ice-skating pond is also at the mercy of temperatures. There is no artificial cooling. If the temperature is too warm, ice skating is closed. 

“It took me about three days to build it. It’s a 40 by 90 liner, so the actual dimensions of it is 36 by 80. I put a railing around it to keep the deer out because last year deer kept running in, and because it was fresh open water and their hooves were popping holes in the liner. So this year, I got netting, and a railing system, which works out great,” she said. 

Hours are posted weekly because of the potential changes in temperatures. See Fanny’s Fruit Farm & Pumpkin –UpickitPatch on Facebook for up-to-date times and schedules of ice skating.