the crazy adventures of pool ownership.

apparently all i had to do was post a complaint about not being able to post and all gets fixed!

friday afternoon the cover came off and this is what was revealed.

so GROSS.  that big blob of yuck is a mixture of pine needles, dirt and the occasional berry.  not only was there a lot of dirt, debris and algae we had a new problem this year.  water striders.  blech!  these bugs are crazy smart.  they move very fast across the top of the water (very similar to jesus..ya dig?) and they have discovered that congregating in the middle of the pool they avoid the water flow and by avoiding the current ultimately avoid the skimmer basket.

this is the furthest we got by the end of saturday.  the water was not necessarily clearing up as much as it was just diluting the yuck.   by mid sunday we were to the filter and return!  i discovered a tiny leak around the skimmer basket but it's nothing that needs to be changed immediately.  i hit the pool store and gathered  chemicals.

by sunday evening i had poured in 3 bottles of chlorine, 1 bottle of clarifier and 1 bottle of algaecide.  the freaking jesus bugs remained!  they seemed to be the chuck norris of all water striders.  i was at a loss.

i did some research and found a chemical called "pool first aid" was the remedy.  i also read that a mixture of dish soap and water killed them on contact.  monday evening i put the boys to work...

their job was to try to disrupt the funk, skim as much as they could and spray any water strider that they saw.  they accomplished a lot!  of course, they also played a bit.  how they could stand to be in that cesspool filled with jesus bugs is beyond me..but i let them have their fun.

before going in for the night i poured in the pool first aid and a packet of chlorine shock.  the plan for today is to put the ladder in and actually get in and vacuum the bottom.  i also hope to see no bugs. the overall goal is to be swimming by wednesday.

fingers crossed!