October 20, 2000

Well, one day later than expected, the pool has been closed. Y2K wasn't a particularly good pool year, overall - too cool. While preparing the pool for closing, I once again (this would actually be the third time) had to oust the giant frog from one of the skimmers. And so ends another year of rodent and amphibian mortality.

October 14, 2000

I finally got out to get some of the leaves out of the pool, and I spotted this chipmunk in the shallow end of the pool. He is probably the last specimen for the year, since the pool is being closed on Thursday. I also got a chance to take a take another picture of the house with its new paint job.

October 10, 2000

Not much new pool news - I haven't been real good about checking the pool lately, especially during the recent cold snap. I made an appointment for the pool closing on Thursday of next week - about one week later than last year. Not a great year for the pool, unfortunately. On the plus side, the cool summer meant not much sweltering, either.

September 20, 2000

I found this very large frog sitting in the southern skimmer. He was about the size of my clenched fist, which is huge compared to the little weenie toads that have been met their demise this year. This frog was very much alive, and you know what that means: Not enough chlorine in the pool!

After snapping this picture, we released the frog a goodly distance away from the pool. I hope he stays out - although he would make a most satisfying "thump" if I were to catapult him into the woods, I'm afraid I would bend my net even more in the process. (I think a plump chipmunk is responsible for the current curvature.)

Since I was updating this page anyway, I've had a picture of this large and ugly spider since early August, and I finally got around to posting it today.

September 13, 2000

Well, nothing died in the pool today, and I helped! I was outside looking at the house (the painting is done now, and it looks great), and then I went over to the pool to check the skimmers. In the northern skimmer I saw a live frog and a live salamander, and peeking out from the flappy thing that keeps the contents of the skimmer from drifting back into the pool, I saw something furry. I poked at it with a stick, and sure enough, it was a live mouse. He shot out into the pool and swam straight to the other skimmer. I poked him over there, and he swam back to his original perch.

After a few more rounds of this, I finally saw where he was swimming, intercepted him with the pool net, and flipped him out into the garden. He quickly scurried into the woods from there. My parting words to his rapidly retreating form: "Stay out of my house!" And so ends my first encounter with a live mouse in the pool. Oh, and I tossed the frog and the salamander into the woods as well.

September 8, 2000

Today's frog in the northern skimmer looked very much alive, except for the way he was bobbing in the current. Sure enough, when I took the bucket out and shook it, he was stiff as a board and flopped onto his back without complaint. I was lazy again today and just heaved the skimmer basket contents into the woods without much fanfare. It's September, it might as well be fall with the weather we've been having, I've only been in the pool twice this "summer", and basically, I'm sick and tired of fishing dead stuff out of the pool this year. I'm not bitter, though.

September 1, 2000

The long drought has ended with my discovery of not one, not two, but three dead critters in the skimmers this evening. At last, I can get the "days since last fatality" counter out of the double digits. The two frogs I found in the northern skimmer were a bit larger than their predecessors. After looking at the pictures, it seems that at least one of the frogs had been dead long enough to bloat a bit. Eeewww. Similarly, the mouse in the southern skimmer had been floating for quite a while, as the fur above the waterline was dry.

I was too lazy to launch the corpses into the woods with the long pole today, so I just heaved them directly from the skimmer baskets. This requires less effort, but the down side is that the bodies do not get much distance, and sometimes they hit the bucket handle on the way out if I'm not careful. In that case, they tends to fall at my feet. I was careful today, though.

August 29, 2000

As promised (threatened?), a picture of the house painting, in progress.

August 28, 2000

Eighteen days without a fatality. While that is good for the little creatures around my house, it's not so good for the web site. I may have to resort to posting daily pictures of the house as it is painted. Yes, that's right - it has become more exciting to watch paint dry than to read this page. Sigh.

August 10, 2000

I looked in both skimmers, and came up empty. But then I spotted this little frog, floating near the robot output hose. There was a bug clinging to him rather stubbornly, but eventually it was wrested free. I haven't been getting any mice lately, but that may be because the water level in the pool is so high from all of the recent rain that they are able to climb out. Or it may have nothing to do with that at all.

I took this opportunity to move a lot of the older pictures to a separate page, which can be viewed here. This main page was starting to load too slowly for my liking.

August 8, 2000

Oh, the amphibianity! Today was a three frog day. They were all rather small specimens, but I suppose it is still early in the season. I was feeling lazy today, so I merely tossed their flaccid corpses into the woods, eschewing the pool skimmer in favor of manual disposal. They lacked the mass to make that distinctive "thunk" as they bounced off the foliage.

August 3, 2000

After a few days of rain, I fished this mouse out of the northern skimmer. It was still raining slightly as I took the photos, and as I dumped the carcass onto the strainer for disposal, there was a rumble of thunder in the distance. So it occurred to me: wouldn't this be the universe's chance for some real irony? Here I am, about to hoist this poor mouse into the woods at the end of a 10 or 12 foot aluminum pole, which at the moment of release stands almost vertically, during a thunderstorm. I might as well paint a big target on my head. I tempted Fate anyway, although I must admit that I put the pole down a bit more hastily than usual after watching my payload tumble through the air into the woods.