Monday, June 09, 2008

Sorry, Kermit

I have an above-ground pool. It was here when my ex and I bought the house. Of course, now I'm the one responsible for pool maintenance, opening and closing, etc. We live on the edge of a ridge, and the winter winds howling up the side always managed to blow the pool cover off, despite everything my ex tried to stop it from happening. There's a deck that partly surrounds the pool, and it's hard to get the cover down in the crack between the deck and pool.

So, the first year I had to deal with the pool myself I went out and bought a leaf net instead, and put it on the pool in the fall, after cleaning and super-chlorinating the pool. The wind can blow through it, so it remains anchored. It keeps out the large debris, but smaller things that show up in the spring after the ice has melted, like tree pollen, those catkin-like things from the birch and poplar trees, and copious amounts of bird crap, can get through the mesh. Add sunlight and heat, and they've brewed up one hell of an algae swamp in my pool.

I'm too ashamed to take a picture of the green water complete with mats of algae floating on top. With help from friends, I've got the cover off, and the pump out of the basement and hooked up. I've raised the water level in the pool and have spent more than three hours skimming the algae out of the pool. Today, I have to drop a sample of pool water off at the pool place, and they'll run a test on it and the computer will spit out a list of the steps I need to follow, and the chlorine I need to add, in order to turn my swamp into a swimming pool again. (Seriously, the way it is now, I don't know whether to add chlorine, or stock it with bass.)

And I want to get it up and running as soon as possible. Why, you ask? Could it be the fact that I don't have air conditioning in the house and the temperatures over the next few days will hit 40 with the humidex? Well, partly. Is it because the kids are practically foaming at the mouth to go swimming? Ummm, yeah, that too. But the real reason that I would like to convert my swamp back into a pool is the fact that my bedroom is at the back of the house, and I like to sleep with the window open. And the frog that has taken up residence on my deck and has been swimming in my pool has started calling out at night for a mate so that he can raise a family in my pool/ecosystem. And I can't sleep because he's so freakin' loud.

(Note: I will ensure that Loudmouth is not in the pool before I add any chemicals. He's a Gray Tree Frog (Hyla versicolor), and since he's nocturnal, he should be sleeping safely under the deck when I'm working on the pool. Just in case you were worried.)






13 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:27 AM

    It sounds like the pool is great -- when it's not harboring wildlife. I hope you can get it up and running soon.

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  2. Anonymous11:32 AM

    We had an above ground pool when I was a kid. One spring the water got like that for some reason or another--it was so nasty. My folks ended up using bleach. Gallons and gallons of bleach to kill the stuff, and then we had to backflush the sand filters hourly for a few days...and then back to normal chlorine maintenance. it worked, but the liner was forever a shade lighter blue :-)

    Poor Kermit. I can believe the frog is keeping you awake! One of my favorite things is to sleep with the windows open in the summer so I can hear the crickets and frogs.

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  3. ours isn't open yet either! poor kids had to run around the sprinkler around the pool...frustration!

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  4. I must say he's pretty cute though. ;)

    Good luck with the pool. We have no AC and are doing the much more low tech super soakers to keep cool. Gah! Summer.

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  5. Anonymous4:43 PM

    My pool looks the same! It's been so cool here all spring that we didn't bother to try to open it til now. I too have a wonderful green shaded pool and frogs, but mine are a nice green to match the pool! Hopefully we can all be swimming shortly....

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  6. No pool, but we had the slip 'n slide out today...

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  7. Pools are a lot of work and because I'm lazy - I bought a house without one:)

    The frog would drive me nuts and not too sure I would remove it before the chlorine....

    Good luck hon and hope you're managing thru the heat ok:)

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  8. um ... WOW.

    And on a side note ... what is WITH this global warming, huh? EVERYONE is complaining about the heat, it seems! (including me!)

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  9. Our pool looked the same way a couple of days ago. I vacuumed out the leaves with a leave sucker and then poured in 2 bottles of shock. Immediately after, the water turned opaque and dark yellow. EWE! I've changed the earth in the filter 3 times and still the pool is filled with these tiny cotton like seed distributers from our cottonwood tree. Hus says that tree is going down next fall!

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  10. A swim sounds refreshing...oh wait, all I have to do to swim is walk out my door and stand there. The rain is making me cranky. Your pool sounds lovely.

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  11. We had algae two years ago. Finally we had to pump the water out and refill it. Shock and algaecide didnt help. Good luck. It was not fun and we couldnt swim in it.

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  12. You have a private swamp! Awesome! Why not put two alligators in it? I am sure they will love to fix your frog problem.

    Seriously though, I am very jealous of your pool. I wish we had one!

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  13. 40 degrees!? What the heck are you doing swimming when it's 40 degrees outside!? :) (Kidding obviously!)

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