The Pool Chores Begin: 2011

The pool chores begin with "the dude" at work.

A few weeks back, I mentioned that Uncle D's was out to open the pool.  They take care of the biggest part of the job for us, but whenever that winter cover comes off, there is always the fine detritus left on the bottom of the pool.

For this, we use a combination of old fashioned manual labor and the hardworking pool robot - "the dude."  So last Sunday it was a happy time to go into the garage and break him out to start his summer job.  After a few maintenance chores - a field mouse had built a winter nest in the housing, I plugged him in and put him to work.

My part of this was to take the pool brush and scrub down the concrete surfaces next to the pool - they're going to need some new paint this year - and then the part of the liner that is above the water, followed by scrubbing down the walls under water.  I also clean out the little baskets in the filter returns, which were full of oak tassels and little pine cones.  I've got some in progress photos here to accompany the post.

In progress, with the debris swept up.

At the end of the first pass.  A few more hours of man-machine efforts and we'll be good to go.

This is a series of tasks that I take care of over two weekends; this year we're getting an early start and we should have the pool ready for Memorial Day weekend.  That's a good thing, since the next 75@75 hike will be then, and it is going to be a rigorous one, since we'll have a lot of daylight.