Eric shows off his back flip into the pool. He has used the pool a lot.
Back Flips Into The Pool
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Tag Archives: pool
The Saga of the Pool
Two summers ago Kathryn bought a discount pool at HyperMart for Eric to play in during the summer. Advertised as “Sets up in 15 minutes”. Of course, Step 1 is “find a level site”. They aren’t talking about sort of level, but dead level. We worked for parts of two days over 4th of July weekend trying to create such a site.
We chose a location that was accessible to power (to run the filter), visible from the house, and sort of level. We dug through driveway aggregate on the high side and added dirt, stone and sand to low side. It was hot and not entertaining.
Afterwards we filled the pool with 1″ to spread out the bottom of the pool and to provide a visual on the level-ness of the installation.
Our installation did not pass the test. The low side was still too low. So we drained it all, removed the cover, pool and ground cloth. We started digging and filling again. We added more dirt fill, re-levelled the entire site and got everything within 1/4 of a bubble on the level. I was sure the additional 6-8″ of fill on the low side would settle, so I was good with that. The pool requires nearly 4,000 gallons of water. We were not prepared to try and fill it from our well. Kathryn arranged for a water truck which came on Monday afternoon. As the pool got filled the truck driver advised against filling it to capacity as it was bulging ‘up slope’. Eric has been using the pool regularly. The low side fill may have settled some, but not enough to relieve our concerns.
It doesn’t look too bad from this profile shot.
There is still a “up-slope” bulge that is worrisome. I am hopeful that a few more days and some determined stomping by the swimmers will help settle the fill and even the distribution of the water.
4th of July Weekend
We took Friday and Saturday and went camping overnight near Piseco Lake. We managed to pack light and single carry across the portage. We found 4 other fisherman staying on the lake with a considerable amount of gear: chainsaw, tents, a canoe and a small boat with an electric motor. For lunch we had sandwiches. Friday night we made 1 pot pasta. Saturday breakfast was instant oatmeal that was past it’s prime and Saturday’s lunch was bagel/cheese/pepperoni sandwiches. Eric convinced us to go swimming on both days. The water was “refreshing” to be kind. There was a lot of loon activity. The fishing was poor. We heard, but did not see, the Piseco Lake fireworks as we went to sleep Friday night. We took Scout with us and she definitely got more comfortable riding in the canoe the more we paddled.
We returned from camping on Saturday afternoon and put away our gear, got showered and went to Red Lobster for dinner.
Sunday morning we cut several ash trees along the far edge of the back meadow – adding about 1 face cord to our wood pile. It was hot, sweaty work and we cooled off with a quick dip in the pond afterwards.
In the afternoon we leveled an area for the swimming pool Kathryn bought the previous summer.
In the evening we met Jack, Chris and Jennifer in Boonville to watch the fireworks. Below Eric and Jennifer chilling before the show.
I used my new camera to try to capture some of the fireworks. I got a lot of pictures of black night skies, but also managed to luck into several nice firework explosions.
Monday we finished installation of the pool. All it needs now is 4,000 gallons of water, more than I plan to provide from our well. I replanted two new rows of peas, made another planting of yellow wax beans and tied up my tomatoes. The tomatoes are showing golf ball sized green fruit. I got my grape arbor wires put up. Finally!