Have you ever heard of a pool cover? My husband and I haven’t. Or at least that’s what you’d think. We own a pool cover, but somehow, it didn’t make it on our pool this year. We should have been more conscientious, because as we often joke: “our pool is our only liquid asset!” Nine months later, after a blustery fall, a brutal winter and a cold spring, our swimming pool looked less like an asset and more like a science project gone wrong. So, this past weekend we bravely climbed in to that frightening green lagoon to extract about a foot of leaves, a few dead frogs, and some other mysterious small creatures.
First, we had to shock the pool just to see the algae-covered bottom. Then, we vacuumed the pool twice. This lifted all of the algae that had settled on the floor of the pool, which turned the water green once again. Argh! For those of you who think owning a pool is great, come over to my house during our annual pool cleaning, and you will soon realize that buying a membership at the local country club pool is a much wiser investment!
Truth be told, when we bought our house, we had no idea how expensive pool maintenance can be. We work all summer long to keep the pool chemicals balanced, and that costs a pretty penny. After what it took to bring the pool back to it’s sparkling blue glory this weekend, you can bet that we’ll be putting the pool cover on the pool at the end of this summer! If for nothing else, I’ll insist just to limit the number of critters I had to encounter.
As I fished dead bees, wasps and beetles from the murky water, I wondered: what’s the wildest thing someone’s every found in their pool? I asked the all-knowing Google and in just a few minutes, I found the answer:
