Weather permitting, Norwell residents have a new free place to skate in town: a 45- by 90-foot rink on the edge of the parking lot at the Pine Street athletic fields, across from the town’s Council on Aging.

The homemade rink, which opened earlier this month, will remain up until temperatures stay consistently above freezing — probably in late February or early March, said Susannah Baxley, the mother of three who helped organize the community project.

“I had gone to visit family up in Lyme, N.H., last year, and they have a great skating rink in the town center,” she said. “[I] thought, wouldn’t it be great to have one right here in Norwell, because we don’t really have a community gathering place for the winter?”