Pool Chores

The chores that I do during the pool open season extend beyond managing Dude, our 'bot. We maintain this blue "solar blanket" in the pool during the week, which passively transfers heat to the water but also retains some of it over night. It also helps keep out some of the leaf litter - but not all of it.

That's the first step on Saturdays, to take this thing off of the pool, working carefully not to dump any extra dirt in while you are doing it.

I should mention that there are other solar methods to heating the pool, but all of them are passive, and may not be effective for our application because of the trees and partial shade. Not to mention how much space they take up - the pool area isn't very large in the first place.

The next step for me is clean these filter baskets in the returns.
This step actually takes place after the robot is already at work. I wear rubber gloves for this, as shown - there is usually a host of dead bugs in the basket, sometimes live ones. I recently wrote about rescuing a toad, and I have seen ring-necked snakes around the pool. So the gloves are a little precaution in case I run into something very much alive and angry.

Just a note about the baskets. I learned early on to hold on to them carefully when emptying them. The slope of the hill is not clear in this picture - it's pretty steep, and a dropped basket will run all the way down to the road.

There are a couple of other elements of the chores that I haven't mentioned - mostly dealing with another filter nearer the pump, and the flushing process for after we've had a lot of rain. All totaled, the activities take about an hour. I usually take care of them while Mary heads off to the Luray Farmers' Market.