Timing and the Pool

Dude - the pool 'bot.

Finally, everything worked right this year and we got the pool opened by Memorial Day.  Although I'm opening the post with a photo of my hero, Dude, the pool robot, the before and after photos below really tell the story of how difficult it was this year.

Dude is not the only hero of this tale.  Our friends at Uncle D's in Luray had a big role to play as well.

See, apparently, that warmer than average March we all enjoyed wreaked some havoc to all the pools under those covers.  We owners were lollygagging around, thinking, well, I don't take the cover off until April.

But lo, the paramecia and algae were getting busy down there in the tepid water.  And then you're going to have to call in the professionals. A few times.

So far, Mary and I have been in the pool a total of six hours, by the way. Our cost per hour of use will get down to something we are not embarrassed to say out loud by the end of the season.

Here are the before and afters.

Poor Dude - he's in there somewhere.

As we left Memorial Day afternoon.

Luray's Spring Fest - 2012 Edition

Luray's Annual Festival of Spring - 2012

This weekend was a special one in the town of Luray – it was time for the annual Festival of Spring, a great outdoor festival down Main Street that was more special than usual this year, since Luray is observing the 200^th anniversary of its founding.  There was a parade on Friday evening, followed by the big deal on Main Street on Saturday.

Mary and I had errands to run downtown anyway, so we made a point to stop by.  Although the Farmers Market was closed, we found out that that space was to be the venue for the disk dog exhibition that is one of the highlights of the festival.  

A view of the beer garden from upstairs at Artisans Cafe.

We also made stops by Uncle D’s Pools and Spas, since we are in the middle of the spring opening of the Hawksbill Cabin pool; we visited with our friends at Appalachian Outdoors Adventures and at Hawksbill Bicycles; saw some friends that had a booth set up to sell handcrafted jewelry; and finally, scouted out the beer garden for later on in the day.  Our morning adventure wrapped up with lunch at Artisans Café on Main Street. (special shout out to Firkin-Good Creatives!)

One of the reasons this event is special to me is that it marks five years since Mary and I were first introduced to the town – we were staying in the Park up at Skyland, and there was rain so we couldn’t hike.  Instead we took a little adventure down into the town, and behold, there was the fest!  I had been on a part-time search for a mountain property at the time, and soon began to include Page County in the rounds I was making on the internet.  By mid-summer we had identified Hawksbill Cabin as a property we were interested in, and the rest is history.

Beer Garden action - with Marcus Brown and the Sugartones.

We made arrangements to come back in the evening for the fest – the folks at Uncle D’s let us park in their lot since we had to pick up pool supplies, and we’d agreed to meet up with friends at five o’clock.  Five O’clock happened to be the start time for the set by Marcus Brown and the Sugartones, just one of the groups taking the stage in the beer garden.

There is also a wine garden at the fest, which we didn’t go and visit this year.  They also have live music at that venue, and there were a half dozen or more local vineyards represented, including our friends at Wisteria Farm and Vineyards.  I peaked in at around 11 a.m., and Sue was already busy pouring tastings and visiting with aficionados.

We hung out for a couple of hours enjoying the music and visiting with friends and neighbors.  Sally and Dan, from the neighborhood, couldn’t join us due to some family commitments, but I heard that Dan had a hand in choosing the beers that were featured.  For myself, I enjoyed the New Belgium variety “Festy” that was on tap.

We were lucky with beautiful neighbors and that just tops it all off for this beautiful little town. 

What’s not to like?

Caution, Dude Crossing

Note:  The video is an ad piece from the iRobot web site.  It is quite loud, so you'll probably rush to turn down the volume like I did.  But there is sweet action footage of the 'bot in action - one of Dude's kin.

"I'm The Dude. So that's what you call me, you know.  That, or, ahhhh....."

The pool at Hawksbill Cabin was the one thing that gave us second thoughts about buying the place. Relatives of ours have had pools, and they always reported mixed feelings about them – about the amount of work that it took to keep them up, about how much money it costs to have them, etc. And then I worried about the risk of trespassers, and the challenges with chemicals, etc. All of that, and it was clear that the previous owners, in their charming “do it yourself, on the cheap, and without really knowing what you’re doing” way might have actually damaged the pool beyond repair.

That’s a long story I’ve written about before. Eventually we met up with the folks at Uncle D’s Pools and Spas, and we’ve had a great experience with the pool – so that pool season is, indeed, something to look forward to every year. One thing about our set up that Uncle D, himself, commented on was the pool robot we discovered buried under some clutter in the cabana.

It’s an iRobot 300 – it vacuums and jets water around that pool like a professional. And after watching it a few times, I remembered that Uncle D told me that my ‘bot was going to need a name. And then we had the poll, and the people spoke, choosing the name, “Dude.” Our new pool guy, the Dude.

Dude is part of the opening and closing ritual every year – and I guess he probably saves me about 10 hours of cleaning after opening. Then each weekend, he’s there to pitch in on Saturday mornings to get things going for us. Many is the morning I have sat and watched the machine at work from the brick terrace, enjoying my coffee, only to be interrupted by a pileated woodpecker or a hummingbird flying over.

We’re really lucky to have Dude. And with all of that, they had bought him new and just buried him away in the cabana. For myself, I don’t know what I’d do without him. Except for maybe, fill in the dang pool.


http://store.irobot.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3024775&cp=2804605.2662061&view=compare&s=D-StorePrice-IRBT&parentPage=family

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.

Chores in Red

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Marty mentioned that he'd had his first hummingbird siting of the year.  That started me thinking that we'd probably see some soon enough at Hawksbill Cabin - I still had the regular feeders up and needed to change over to hummingbird feeders.

I should note - the pool's been opened already (shout out to Uncle D's team!).  I've got some work to do down there before it is ready for swimming.  I hope to get to that next weekend.

So this weekend, as I sat enjoying my coffee on the brick terrace, wearing my red sandals, I was cheerfully greeted by a little ruby-throated hummingbird who came to check out his favorite red color, only to be disappointed that he'd found my shoes.  Or maybe that cheerful greeting was scolding...in any case, it was off to Tractor Supply for some syrup.

I was buzzed again before I got away, and then, to my surprise, I saw one of them checking out the empty seed feeder in the maple tree.  This is the same place I hang a hummingbird feeder every year - so I'm wondering if we get the same ones back every year.  I hear they are habitual creatures.

Now, when I get into Tractor Supply sometimes I can't help it and I buy something else.  Since we got the new fence I thought it might be a good idea to put some reflectors on that end post.  So I got some help to find them - they were not where I expected them and we had to cruise by the trailer hitches and light kits, but at last there they were.  I bought two, and now they are properly installed.

As I looked up from my task, I noticed the overlooked sign that is in front of the place.  Long ago, the Thompsons named the place Windward - they made a nice sign for it that the last owners replaced with this hand-chiseled one.  We've since found the old one, which we keep as an artifact in the shed.

Mary says she plans to paint in the letters soon.  Color:  Red.

The Pool's Closed

 

Mary and I decided to close the pool early this year, especially once we realized we would be taking our last swim on Labor Day weekend. Remembering that having the pool open as the leaves begin coming down makes the opening next year that much more difficult, we arranged to have the gang from Uncle D’s come out and take care of the closing mid-September.

So here’s a photo of the pool all closed down and covered up.

Not to be forgotten, I took late summer photo of the pool in all its glory before we closed it, so here are two from Labor Day weekend, just as we were deciding on the early closing.

Also, we learned something else about the pool during summer dinners on the brick terrace – that the ambient lighting it gives off is very pleasant. We used this as background light to supplement the candles during a couple of dinner parties with neighbors this summer. It made for a nice time.



Pool's Open for the 4th!

I posted this on FB earlier in the week...also, emailing between my phone cam and AOL accounts are slow today so I won't be able to get the full before and after effect in this post.  But the Uncle D's team came out earlier this week for the second part of our pool opening, and the results - shown here - are totally inviting!

As I've posted already, our pool opening was delayed due to tree work we wanted to have done.  We finally got under way last week, when the guys took the cover off, reinstalled the pool ladder, did some testing and purging, and got the shock efforts taken care of.

There was algae, and there was a bit of winter detritus in the tool, which we worked to scoop and vaccuum out.  The earlier chores helped make sure this wasn't as bad as last year.

Then on Tuesday, the gang came out to wrap up the effort.  They vaccuumed and brushed, and so the pool is open and ready to go.

We are really looking forward to this!

Pool Opening: The Dude Abides

Tammy and the team from Uncle D's came out yesterday to open the pool.  Before I write up the report she gave, I'll post a bit on the prep I did for this.

First things first, I brought the Dude out of hibernation in the shed.  Some readers may recall that our beloved pool robot was named "the Dude" in a reader poll back in 2008.  He is a real work horse and source of entertainment.  Some weekends, I don't even go in the pool, settling instead for putting the Dude to work and watching from the brick terrace.  With pool opening imminent, I got him ready to stand by.

And that is just what he did yesterday.  After taking the cover off and starting the process, Tammy decided it would be best not to put the Dude in the pool...She wrote, "Well your pool is NOT pretty and blue right now!! It is open but really green. We did not put the pool rover in there because you could not even see in the water."

Some of the other stuff I did this weekend to get ready for the opening was to clear all of the litter from the pine tree away.  It settles and steeps on the pool cover during the winter, so it was a priority to clean that periodically.  Still, there was a lot of decaying plant matter there - I am sure that it contributed to the condition of the water.

Also, there was a lot of accumulated stuff around the deck and on the patio down there.  After about two hours I had everything gathered in the corner, as shown here.  Just looking at these results - although I hated losing that big pine, it will probably be a good thing for the pool filter and pump not to have to deal with all this.

Tammy said she'd be back on Wednesday to check in to see how things are cleaning up.  I will also head out for a day trip this weekend to check in - trying to get everything ready for the Fourth!

As seen on... Adventures in the Valley Blog -

Well, almost everywhere I went this weekend, I was greeted by a story that began:

"Howard could not be with us because he was in West Virginia helping Joe and Cooter deliver a hot tub to a trailer."

With such a fine opening statement, I'll let readers go ahead and make up their own post this morning.

A Winter Chore for the Pool

Last year, after pool closing, I learned something important about the pool cover. Since rain falls through it, the level of the pool rises during the winter, so that eventually there is a place in the middle of the pool where the cover is below the water.

Almost anything that falls onto the pool cover will then end up sitting in the water over the winter - at best, the tannins and other chemicals leach from the detritus in the pool, at worst you could have an animal drown there and create a hidden but unpleasant situation for you over winter...not to mention the difficulties all the litter causes during pool opening.

So this year I resolved to do something different. Uncle D's team came out and closed the pool two weeks earlier, before most of the leaves fell, so there aren't a lot of them in the pool in the first place. Then as an accumulation of leaves piles up in the pool area, I have been raking them out as often as I can. And I am using one of the extended pool brooms to "sweep" what falls into the trouble spot out in the middle of the pool away.

This can be a nasty business - the plant material is rotting as it sits in the water, it's usually cold out, and you can't avoid getting a little wet during this task. But it's also rewarding - there's a simple satisfaction from getting the job done, and there's reassurance in knowing what this preventative measure is going to do in the long run until next Spring.

Pool's Closed

The team from Uncle D's was out a couple of weeks back to close the Hawksbill Cabin pool. I am so glad we got that taken care of so early this year! Here is a photo of the pool with the winter cover on - there is actually an extensive checklist of tasks that need to be taken care of during the process leading up to covering the pool, so it is very good to have the Uncle D's crew around to take care of all of this.


I noticed that in just the short week since the closing happened, the pine tree and others had already shed quite a bit of foilage. I cleaned up on Sunday night before I left, and this bushel-sized pile is what had accumulated - this would have been in the pool if it wasn't already covered!



Also, while I was on the deck sweeping, I took a better photo of the coleus plantings that I mentioned last week, along with the (empty) hummingbird feeder. Next weekend, I will take the feeder down and clean it - I am planning to put a suet basket here over the winter.



Last photo, a glimpse of the beaver pond from the deck. Soon the leaves will be off and we will be able to clearly see how much it has shrunk since the dam broke last spring. However, there is still enough of a pool of water there to attract herons and ducks, so it's still a nice view.

Pool Closin'

As if there weren't enough signs of fall already, we ran into Uncle D and Tammy at the Mimslyn O-fest on Sunday. (Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Luray-VA/Uncle-Ds-Pools-Spas-LLC/82303143717?ref=ts) They told us they'd be coming by the Hawksbill Cabin to do our pool closing this week.

Now, when we first looked into getting the pool repaired, we were skeptical that anything could be done. The team at Uncle D's proved us wrong, and actually got the job done at a very reasonable cost.

We have ongoing conversations about the possibility of snakes in our yard, and that was a concern when they got to work on the pool rehab. Darris asked if we had checked out the pool cover (green bag near the cabana in the photo) to make sure that there weren't any snakes. I told him no, we hadn't checked, and it was still right where we left it in the spring. He said, "Well, darn it, there are probably snakes in there. If you find any bullet holes in the cover next weekend, you'll know what happened!"

So herewith, a few parting shots of the pool. It seemed like a short swimming season because June was so rainy and cold in the Valley. But Mary and I agreed we managed to use the pool intensively in July and August, once the temperature warmed up.

But, the maple tree by the pool hasn't changed yet, and we need to get the pool covered before all those leaves start to come down. This little pile is just from overnight, from the nut trees that aren't anywhere near the pool.

We tried a few things to keep the pool area looking nice this year, including this new planting by Mary - previously, there was a monster hosta here, but we wanted more color and chose the coleus. Also, there's a hummingbird feeder, and we had at least three birds around the yard, possibly a fourth. I filled this for the last time on Sunday.

The last photo here is one of my favorite fall foilage views. There is a little gap in the trees looking eastward from our yard, to a ridge that rises over the little hollow. The oaks and cottonwoods change early on the ridge, and they catch the last sunlight at dusk, bathing the front of the cabin in a golden glow just before sunset.

Summer Surprise #5

Darris warned us that sometimes we'd find a critter or two in the pool. Most of the time, that has meant frogs and toads; creatures that can survive for a time in the pool. Other than many different kinds of (dead) insects, we haven't found many other critters to speak of in there (thankfully).

Frogs survive in the pool more easily than toads - that makes sense, I guess - the frogs can spend more time underwater, holding their breath and place. Toads tend to bob along on the surface - I've rescued three of them from places they'd found to rest.

Here is the latest of those rescues. This fellow found a perch on the power cord for Dude, our pool robot, which I'd left in the pool overnight recently. I was able to fish this guy out and turn him loose in the yard afterwards.

We got algae!

As we prepared to head out to the Hawksbill Cabin last weekend, we were more than a little apprehensive about what we might find. During the previous two weeks since we had been out, there had been tons of rain, and even an F1 tornado nearby in Stanley – during a storm that also brought golf ball sized hail to the town. So we thought there was a chance that we might find a downed tree or trees, along with other potential forms of damage.

Also, I’d worked a couple of weekends straight on getting the pool cleaned and opened after Daris and the Uncle D’s team took care of preliminaries. That pool sparkled as we left for home, so I was hoping that there wouldn’t be a lot of work to be done to get it ready for the three-day weekend we had planned last weekend, not to mention the upcoming weekend of the Fourth of July.

There was nothing of note as far as property damage goes; the Hawksbill Cabin is nestled into a hollow and the strong winds miss us. However, all the rain had raised the water level in the pool, and whenever that happens, I know to look for issues with how the filters and pumps are working. First photo above is a look at the thermal cover as I saw it when I took my first inspection walk around the pool – the green streaks are algae that accumulated in the standing water on top of it.

I also noticed this lovely bright green color over on the stairs, figuring that the extent of the algae was where the sun hit it – until I took the thermal cover off and found that pretty much the entire pool was algae-fied. Into town I went to consult with Uncle D.

Before we get up on our collective soapboxes about sustainability and green living, I should preemptively say that having a pool in the first place means you are practicing better life through chemicals. We didn’t build this and almost didn’t buy the place because it had a pool; once we did, we figure that having the pool fixed was the best way to protect the investment on the house, as opposed to filling it in or letting it atrophy into worse condition.

There is a full history of this decision-making process available by clicking the “Uncle D” label over in the list at the bottom right of the blog.

At Uncle D’s I announced that I had algae and was looking for help. We chose an algaecide, and Daris walked me through how to get the filters to boost the chlorine to a higher level (which I did, for starters). He told me that with all the rain, there aren’t many pools that don’t have algae this summer, and the problem here was that we were away a couple of weeks and it got ahead of us. Just give him word and they will come out and attend to things – through a phone call, or “shoot me a Facebook” – (Uncle D’s page is at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Luray-VA/Uncle-Ds-Pools-Spas-LLC/82303143717?ref=ts).

So with the chemicals all getting to work, I also set the machines loose on the algae, with Dude going at it and using my new cheapo pole mounted mini vac; plus manual scrubbing from the long brush. I worked over Friday and Saturday a couple of hours at a time, and by Sunday, the pool was sparkling. Mary and I made plans for an afternoon swim, after I ran some errands in town.

After my errands, we put on our suits and went down into the pool. As soon as we both were in – it started to rain. Oh well, it was refreshing, in any case!

Pool Opening

Uncle D's team came over a few weeks back and got the pool opened for us. There was still work to do once they'd balanced chemicals, taken the cover off, and all of those chores - mostly, a lot of leaf and tree litter had fallen in the water, and then we needed to do the shock treatment.

Cleaning out the over winter stuff takes a little bit of time. I used Dude, the pool 'bot, for a good share of the work, but I also skimmed and broomed the debris a couple of times a day. I put Dude in the pool for an hour or so at a time, twice a day, at times that I could supervise.

The three photos here show how the vents got clogged in the early going, and the full bag after a short time in the early part. Later, there's Dude on a break, and you can see that the pool is relatively clear already.

All the spring rains have been causing a few problems. For one thing, the rain and wind knock down all the little buds from the big pine - and they've encouraged an excessive pollin season from the big tree. Big mess, and everything floats, so it is a job for the skimmer - myself.

I shocked the pool, which requires using a dosage of chlorine, early in the week, and did a second shock to compensate for all the rain on Sunday before we left. Last view of the pool is one with the thermal blanket in place, this is how we leave it after we close for the weekend.

Maybe next year for Christmas

For some time now we’ve been thinking about whether we need to get a spa – and my recent visit to Uncle D’s only reinforced the question. They’ve got a sale on - almost 25% off - and in particular, this spa model seems like exactly what we need…

This one seats four and has a cool down seat. It’s 6.5 feet in diameter, and can plug into regular household current. We’d just need to get one of those orange extension cords and pass it through to the hot tub. It even has a cup holder!

Also making it attractive is the style of it – it calls to mind the retro versions I’ve really been thinking about, actual wood-fired models. These photos are from Snorkel Tubs, which frequently advertises in the Utne Reader. We’ve got no shortage of firewood to keep one of these humming.

I think we have a couple of places on the lot where we could set up and have the same woodsy setting. Our neighbors Dan and Sally have a hot tub that’s built pretty far away from the house, near the organic garden (I’ve written about his hops before). They have a great night view from there in a setting partially surrounded by woods, and Big Meadow is visible from the spot.

Working against the wood-fired idea is the thought that the water needs to be changed frequently, since there is no filter, the assembly is touchy, or you have leaks, and the potential for freezing and the problems associated with that.

I’d be inclined to go with the one I saw at Uncle D’s, only that would be a big project: I need to build a deck to hold it (about 4,000 lbs. with water and people), get power out there, and then get a roof of some kind over it to keep the pine branches, needles and cones out.

So, maybe next year on this one.

Holidays at Uncle D's

I have been thinking for a long time about getting a spa set up at Hawksbill Cabin. I’ve been leaning towards a wood-fired one; there are so many downed trees on the acre and a half that I don’t think I would ever despair of fuel. So as I was walking around downtown Luray last Saturday, enjoying the decorations, I spied a very festive décor in Uncle D’s and stopped in…before I talk about the spa…here are some photos of the tree they set up in the store.

They were quite busy in the store, which has been the normal situation for them since opening. This time, they were fielding calls from the local counties and municipalities about new swimming pool regulations that went into effect last week.

Turns out that Uncle D’s is an authority on developments of this sort, and they are working on planning retrofits that will bring many of the area pools into compliance with the new codes by Spring. They were just wrapping up some coordination with a professional association on getting some training set up for local building inspectors.

Here’s a close up of the tree at Uncle D’s…those are no ordinary ornaments! It’s a bunch of sharks. Danger!

Project Recaps - 2008

Mary's put together the full accounting of all the work we had done on the cabin this year. It's a pretty healthy bill; not quite as much as our first year and now most of the major stuff is stabilized. Of course, the main expense this year was the pool repair, which was done to our extreme satisfaction ,thanks to Uncle D in Luray - and the liner solution he installed for us probably saved us more than $5K overall this year.

At some point in the near future we'll have a full list of everything we took on, and reconcile the list of projects still to be done. Significantly, we have some work coming up on the driveway, as we have some wash from uphill that is creating an erosion problem, shown here on the driveway near the shed building.

In the second photo, there is one of the black tubes we've installed to direct the downspout flows into existing culverts in the yard; during the July and August rains there was an incredible amount of water moving, making its way down to Beaver Run.

Eventually we'll move to a rainwater collection system for part of this, but we haven't found the barrels we'd like at a reasonable cost yet - they all carry the fashionable "sustainable" or "green" design label, which seems to be an excuse to charge a lot extra for something that is very practical and shouldn't be a Smith and Hawken solution. Not to mention where the plastic ones are likely made, and the transportation/ fuel costs of getting them here, and all of that offsetting the sustainability benefits in the first place...not to be cynical or anything.

We are planning to address this problem with a culvert installation similar to the ones I have seen up in the Park, especially on Stonyman. We have some left over rail road ties that can be used for this purpose, and we'll cut the flow across the driveway into this culvert, so that the water doesn't flow the length of the hill taking our gravel with it....more to come on that, however!