September 25, 2008

Another pool season draws to a close. I am closing the pool somewhat early this year - all the better to avoid having to skim leaves out of the it (or feel guilty about not skimming them out.) Our capricious pool guy was only three days late this year, and I only had to call one extra time, so I am calling that a victory.

September 21, 2008

Another pool year draws to a close. We dumped the rest of the shock into the pool today just to get rid of it. The pool is really more of a pond right now - it is a deep green. It's hard to believe it was clean only two weeks ago. Anyway, I scooped this last chipmunk out of the southern (deep end) skimmer. He was fairly fresh, so it's a good way to end the season. In theory, the pool will be closed tomorrow, which is good because the leaves haven't really started coming off the trees yet, and that will make next year's startup a little easier.

September 18, 2008

The pool is disgustingly green again. Thankfully, it will be closed on Monday the 22nd.

September 7, 2008

Well, after a week of shocking the hell out of the pool, it was suitable for swimming this weekend. We had our second and likely last pool party of the summer. Naturally, I finally got around to checking the skimmers this morning after about a month of neglect, and found this relatively fresh mouse in the northern skimmer. This is after what was left of Hurricane Hannah dumped about two or three inches of rain on us last night, and that usually results in some critter fatalities.

July 26, 2008

I found two loverly frogs today after the big rain storm. There was a third, but he was still alive and jumped up out of the basket and right back into the pool. So I'll be seeing him a little later this week.

I also spotted this butterfly floating - it looked like a leaf, but given our recent bat-on-the-deck, from the house I thought it might be another bat. I was excited that I might be able to add a "bat" row to the fatality table, but alas, as it was only a butterfly, no such luck. (I don't count insects because there are just so darn many of them.)

July 20, 2008

Finally got around to checking the pool again this morning. There was not a big haul today, just a few frogs and a mess of Japanese beetles. But as a special bonus, there was a dried up old bat on the deck, pictured below. (Insert your own joke here.) Enjoy!

Also, an astute rantbacker pointed out that the weird "decapitated" "mouse" that I fished out on June 28 was in fact a star-nosed mole. Follow the link to see one of nature's odder creatures. These are apparently fairly common in the Northeast. Who knew? The critter counts have been adjusted appropriately.

July 4, 2008

It looks like frog season has started. First we get the little ones, then we work our way up. Today five frogs declared their independence from life. There were quite probably more, but these tiny ones tend to disintegrate pretty rapidly.

June 28, 2008

Ok, frankly, I'm not sure just exactly what is dying in this pool anymore. The one on the left above is clearly a mouse. I found him in the shallow skimmer. The thing on the right above was in the deep end skimmer. Now, it mostly looks like a mouse (or other mouse-like rodent - I am not going to use the R-word here...), but what is the deal with whatever the hell is up near where I would expect its head to be? It looks like tentacles or something. I tried to google for mouse brain stems and spinal cords, on the theory than something ate its head, but I came up dry. So, I am chalking this thing up as a mouse. The whole thing kind of gives me the creeps.

On a lighter note, Allison spotted this behind her car in the garage a few days ago. Apparently she had run it over - several times. It's a loverly two dimensional mouse now. No, he doesn't count for the purposes of the chart.

June 18, 2008

Wow, a couple of firsts today. In the northern skimmer I found the very first bird to expire (or at least end up) in the pool. I did a doubletake, because a floating dead bird looks like a little piece of fuzz.

I also managed to splash some shock into my mouth when I was putting chemicals in the pool. I've splashed (and ruined) clothes before, but never my internals. I probably won't die, but if I do, rest assured you will see it here first. And someone will have to add yet another row to the death tally table above.

June 17, 2008

So the Palm survived the trip to the bottom of the pool... in a fashion. After drying out for several days, I was able to sync the Palm to my laptop and rescue all of my appointment data. However, as soon as I unplug the unit, it goes black. My guess is that the water shorted out the battery contacts long enough to kill the battery. Strictly speaking, the Palm itself is not dead, and I have ordered a new battery. But the touch screen wasn't working too well either, so I may end up replacing the whole thing anyway.

June 11, 2008

This chipmunk was taking the longest of naps in the shallow end skimmer. Unfortunately, my Palm organizer slipped out of my shirt pocket and into the deep end of the pool shortly after I launched Mr. Chipmunk into the woods. It looks as though the Palm might be taking the longest of naps as well. I have some hope that it will come back to life after it dries out, though, so I won't put its picture up just yet.

June 8, 2008

June 7, 2008

June 2, 2008

The pool opened on time, and the pool guys screwed up less than usual this year, so I guess that is progress. I re-aimed and tightened the water jets, turned off the pool robot output and instead redirected the water flow to only the surface jets, and set the timer to run the pump for ten hours a day. Also, I closed all of the open electrical panels and turned on one of the breakers they had neglected to flip. Then I shut off the heater, not that it was doing anything because the gas hadn't been turned on. But at least there were no missing jets like last year. We brought the pool cover back into the house as well. The pool still needs to be swept, but that is a project for another day.

Also, there are no dead critters yet.

May 28, 2008

The pool is supposed to open tomorrow. So I guess it is time to update the web site.