Back from Vacation

[frustratedpoolmom]

Hi Everyone!

I'm back from vacation and pleased to report that after an 11 day absence I returned to a clear pool with CL at 5!

I shocked the pool the day before I left.

I put the solar cover on, filled four bleach jugs with water and set them in various spots on the cover to hold it in place (high winds) its a good thing I did, a storm blew threw - patio furniture and our inflateable slide were blown all over, I would bet the cover would have blown off if I had not put the jugs on.

I had a friend put a jug of chlorine in twice while I was gone.

I left the pump on low 24/7.

The only downside is its been very hot here and the water temp on return was 94 degrees! Not a refreshing swim at all - ha ha ha

Keeping the solar cover off a couple days to bring the temp down.

I was so worried I would return to green water, what a relief

Thanks for all the advice!

 

[The Mermaid Queen]

YAY! hop on in your giant CLEAN! hot tub!!

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

I did! Although today its a much more comfortable 88 degrees.... :lol:

Today our dilemma is the Cicadas....

This is our year for the invasion of 17 year Cicadas, they are everywhere and keep landing on us and in the pool on the toys and floating in the skimmer... ick....I hear they will be gone in a month.

 

[The Mermaid Queen]

gross! I hate hate HATE crunchy bugs! A cicada got caught in my hair one night when I was in college... between the sound it made, and my cute 'crunchy bug alert and dance (looks sorta like this: only really fast and loud !!) the noise was atrocious!!

We have some 17-year ones around here, but they are not due for about 12 years!

 

[NWMNMom]

That would be a lot like the almost month long Junebug invasion we are just finally starting to see the end of. Each day we would dig and dip between 200-500 or more of these great big, nasty, biting and crunchy beetles out of and off of the pool. They piled up so deep on the edge of the woods it began to smell back there and I had to have my teenagers go rake the nasty 7' long x appx 1' deep pile of them into a hole we dug. We thought the birds (magpies) would eat them like in the past years but they hold a grudge and DH shot at them for being too noisy so they won't come in the yard now. The flies had begun to descend on the mess. They clogged my skimmer several times a day and their legs stick to the skimmer netting so you have to actually bang it on something to get them off! UGH! bugs are the worst debris - there never seems to be an end to them. Cicadas are just as bad but we don't get many up our way.