Work for fun

As springtime has officially settled in, we have started eying the green swamp in the backyard. Wednesday I stocked up on any and all chemicals we might need for our pool. Last year we didn't really have a clue what we were doing, and just used chlorine tablets and shocked the pool. It seemed like we had to shock much too often though, and algae grew overnight. After doing some reading, I figured out that having the right PH, and using algae stopper, can help with this.

I headed to the pool supply store where they do free water testing. I do have some little strips, but the store's test is much better. As expected, we had some major issues. The main issue being that we had about 3x the suggested amount of Cyanuric Acid (CA). CA is an ingredient in the chlorine tablets, to make sure the chlorine doesn't get burned up too fast by UV rays. Over time, the CA builds up, and the only way to get rid of it, is to replace the pool water with fresh water.

Since we don't have a built-in pump that can drain the whole pool, we had to be resourceful. Joe said he had a pump that was part of his dad's bio diesel making setup. He didn't tell me however, that it's a tiny little woos pump that only pumps about 300 gallons per hour. We have a 14,000 gallon pool. You do the math (I did it for you, and it would take about 48 hours!)

Here's where our ingenuity comes into play. Laws of physics explain how you can get water draining through a hose, as long as you get it started, and the starting point is higher than the end. So I collected 3 hoses from all over the farm, and layed them from the pool to the lake. Then, we had to get the stream going by sucking at the bottom end, and pushing water at the pool end. Sure enough, all 3 are SLOWLY sucking water out of the pool (probably a total of another 300 gln/hr)

24 hours is still not fast enough for me, so we started using good old buckets and muscles. When you are dumping buckets loads out of the pool, nothing seems to make progress. You just have to turn off you mind, and let your body take over the work. Try not to think about the impossible amount of water that needs to be taken out, and ignore the muscle spasms.

We worked together for a good 2 hours, and got the pool down pretty far (maybe 1 ft deep at the shallow ends) I can tell my arms will be sore for a long time! I thought it would be fun to take pictures of the progress as we went. Of course the kids couldn't resist getting their swimsuits on and splashing around too!

OMG: it looks like my camera played a cruel trick on me. For some unknown reason, all of the pictures I took after I took my card out of my camera once, are GONE!!!! All of the progress pictures!! It's weird, because they were there, and I could look at them before I took the card out of the camera again. I have no clue what happened! Ah well, at least they weren't any really important pictures. So I guess you'll just won't see the pictures of me working hard, and the kids playing in a swamp, and you'll just have to accept before and after picturesThis is what it looks like right now.
Shoot, I also lost all the pictures I took of our cats eating the snake we found and shot in the chicken coop. It was a pretty good sized, maybe 3 ft long, snake. Our cats really eat anything! Who needs cat food?