October 9, 2001

As you can see above, the pool guys came and closed the pool sometime after lunch. In hindsight, I should have sped up the poolcam's images today to create a smoother animation of the covering process. Oh well - there's always next year! I will add the closing animation later tonight.

(Ooops, as it turned out, I didn't have time to make the movie tonight - but I did fix all of the broken Homestead links on the Pix pages.)

October 7, 2001

In what is likely the last time this season, I emptied the skimmer buckets once again. They were quite full of leaves, it being Fall and all. Anyway, I couldn't find the handle to the southern skimmer bucket with my trusty bent coat hanger, because it was clogged about six inches deep with leaves. So, I started pulling them out by hand - a sure recipe for disaster.

On about the third handful, I came up with Chippy, pictured back and to the left. On one hand, I was happy to see him, because he was probably the last dead critter of the year. On the other hand, I have that aversion to touching dead stuff. But there you have it - a big ol' handful of deceased rodent. The pool closes Tuesday, and not a day too soon.

September 22, 2001

Man, the pool is just scary green lately. While Allison tried to get some of the algae off of the walls of the pool, I did my usual skimmer check. In the first skimmer, I found two little black and yellow salamanders - both still alive, I am sorry to report. I "escorted" them to the woods. Here is a picture of one of them - pretty cool for these here parts.

I then checked the northern skimmer, where I found a chipmunk bobbing in the current. When I pulled out the basket to take the picture, I discovered a mouse in there as well. These, too, were reintroduced to the forest. I haven't been using the long skimmer pole to catapult things lately - too much effort for something that only ends up damaging the equipment. Oh, the thrill is gone!

Finally, I finished my rounds by hauling up the pool robot and cleaning its filter bag. I didn't see any critters at first, but after the gunk was dumped on the ground, I saw a big swatch of mouse fur, of which I dutifully snapped a picture. (I am, after all, nothing if not dutiful.) If you look closely, I think you can see the poor guy's spine.

All and all, it was a fulfilling day at poolside. I only hope that those salamanders get bigger and climb back in the pool - the little three inchers are OK, but the foot long big ones are REALLY cool.

September 17, 2001

The pool is going to be closed on October 9. Not soon enough for my liking! It looks like I will get to exercise my leaf scooping skills again.

September 16, 2001

After a long hiatus which I attribute to a lack of chlorine in the pool water, something has once again died in the pool. I spotted this mouse on the bottom in the shallow end. The pool is in pretty sad shape right now - algae is running rampant, we've run out of chlorine other than shock and our normal pool supply store has already stopped selling chemicals for the year. So it looks like it's about time to wrap up yet another season of aquatic hijinks. I'd like to thank the Academy, and all of the little critters that have made me what I am today. Now I just need to schedule the pool guys to close this little operation down until next spring, and the lives of the countless rodents and amphibians that live in my backyard will be just a little safer. For a while, anyway.

August 19, 2001

After scooping out three or so live frogs this morning, I found this creature dead in the southern skimmer bucket. It was kind of odd, because a live frog kept trying to crawl on top of the corpse to get out of the water. I'm not sure if it was a shrew or a mouse - it did have a sort of long snout. I decided to chalk it up as a mouse, because how much difference does it really make? Dead is dead.

August 11, 2001

Finally, after an extremely long dry spell, something died in the pool. It was a frog, which was just lying on the bottom. The hot weather has caused the pool to get a little green, and that is apparent in the accompanying picture. It looks like we didn't spot this guy very early, because he just disintegrated into the pile of goo that I have pictured to the right. Nonetheless, he has broken the cold streak.

August 2, 2001

Sorry, the pool cover is still saving critters left and right. However, I have finally managed to get the Poolcam working again. The computer that hosts the camera was, for some unknown reason, no longer on speaking terms with the computer that hosts the web site. Tonight I managed to get them talking again, thanks to the glory that is the Web, and to someone named Kurt Hansen, who happened to have very similar problems about two years ago.

July 22, 2001

Well, the solar cover has really been putting a damper on this page. However, I did make a time lapse movie (20MB - you'll be wanting a cable modem for this) of the pool activity at yesterday's "Summer Party". When Matt fell in the pool at the end of the day, that was a bit of excitement. (If you click on and look closely at the picture to the right, you can see the PoolCam in the second upper window.)

July 1, 2001

Since we put the solar cover on, there have been no pool deaths to report, a sad situation indeed for the dynamics of this page. Yesterday, however, we decided that the water was warm enough, and cloudy to boot, so we pulled off the cover and started messing with the pool chemicals. Later in the day, there was a pretty big storm - it knocked out the computer that I use to supply big images and movies to the web site for a few hours.

Today, however, I reaped the benefits of the storm and of the lack of the solar cover. Not one, not two, but twenty-four frogs were floating in the skimmer buckets and in the pool itself, as well as several live frogs. (Of course, I don't count live animals, and I try to help them out of the pool whenever possible.) This is a new record for me, although most of the frogs were very tiny. I also didn't count several that had sunk into the deep end, but the pool robot may get those eventually.

June 9, 2001

It was a beautiful sunny day today, and we had decided to put the solar cover on to the pool to attempt to capture some of that warmth. (The water is currently a chilly 70°F.) Of course, I had to check for dead things first. I examined the southern skimmer - nothing. Then I called over to Allison to check the northern skimmer. I knew immediately by the "Ewww!" and the sudden jump backwards that I had some photographing to do.

I found a chipmunk floating in a rather odd place in the filter intake. I poked him with a stick to get him into the range of the bucket and pulled him out. Then I noticed that the little flap that keeps debris from floating back into the pool when the pump is not running was stuck in a funny position. I reached in to straighten it out, and all of the sudden I was the one saying "Ewww!" and jumping back.

That's right - apparently Chippy had a swim buddy, and his corpse was what was clogging up the flap. In the process of fixing the intake, his cold little body brushed up against my hand - I was not expecting that! It was a bit of a challenge to hold him back with a stick so that I could reinsert the bucket and pull both chipmunks out. I then catapulted both of them into the woods, where they can be decaying buddies (or more likely, a meal for some scavengers). See the catapult movie here (1,337 KB).

June 5, 2001

I got around to fixing the PoolCam this weekend, and it also looks like the Kuzeja pages are back online. All is right in the world.

I found our first chipmunk nestled up against this frog in the southern skimmer. Both of them were floating, maybe because I hadn't checked the filter baskets all weekend. (Hey, it was rainy and I might melt, don't you know.) I emptied the pool robot as well, but while it held quite a few earthworms, there were no more significant creatures. I sent the chipmunk and the frog arcing into the woods via the Catapult Express. Looks like I'll be getting plenty of practice this year!

May 31, 2001

It's been a cool few days, with a fair amount of rain, so I wasn't too surprised to find yet another mouse in the northern filter basket. I almost missed him, though - I didn't spot him until I dumped the basket contents near the woods. I'm going to leave him in situ for a few days. That might make an interesting follow up picture.

Also, bad luck today - the computer that manages the PoolCam had a hard drive failure. I have a spare, but it will be a little while before I can get all of the software reinstalled. So enjoy the tasteful yet hard to read placeholder I have installed in its stead.

May 28, 2001

After backwashing the filter to remove the dirty diatomaceous earth (filter material), I spotted this fellow in the southern filter basket. I was able to give him the traditional sendoff via pool skimmer/catapult, but I'm a little rusty and he didn't achieve his full distance potential. Oh well - there's plenty more where he came from.

May 24, 2001

I'll admit - I've been a little lazy lately. The pool water has clouded a bit, although I will place part of the blame on the weather over the last few days (lots of showers and drizzle). Anyway, wet weather is usually good weather for finding deceased animals in the pool, and this week was no exception. After a disappointing visit to the north skimmer, I came up with these two guys in the south one. It is unseasonably early to be getting frogs, so that was kind of a surprise. He's a real warty one, too.

I didn't spend too much time coaxing a good picture out of the mouse - there were too many mosquitos about. Both of these guys were just tossed into the woods, but I have finally taken the regular pool skimmer out of the garage, so future victims will be hurled, as is proper.

May 17, 2001

I found this cute little fellow floating serenely in the center of the pool, nestled against the looping coils of the pool robot. I gingerly fished him out with the leaf skimmer - not an easy task - and plopped him onto the pavement to take his portrait. Then I poked at him with the bent up coat hanger I use to remove the skimmer baskets until I managed to get him onto the skimmer basket cover, from which I flipped him ceremoniously into the woods.

May 13, 2001

May 13^th - a day that will live in infamy. Today saw the first pool fatality of the season, a mouse in the northern skimmer that was all but lost in the Spring tree debris. Fortunately I noticed it as I dumped the ball of tree seeds off in the woods, as is my tradition. The pool season can now officially be said to have begun.

May 7, 2001

The pool has been opened on schedule. Click here to see a short (313K) time lapse movie of the pool being opened. Sadly for me, but happily for various rodents, there were no dead things worth recording in the pool yet. I cleaned out a good deal of the leaves, and tomorrow I'll get the pool robot working. Click here to see a longer (4,561K) time lapse movie of the entire day.

April 22, 2001

I finally got around to setting up the Poolcam. It promises to be about as exciting as watching paint dry. Come to think of it, you'll literally be able to watch the grass grow.

March 20, 2001

Allison has made the call, and the pool will be opened on May 7, assuming that the pool guys are on schedule for a change this year. That is a bit earlier than I'd like, but it's so hard to get good help these days.