Pool closing weekend

It is a sad affair. The 16-foot plastic pool with the inflatable collar must be taken down at the end of the season. And the season ends once the nighttime temperatures hit values that are low enough to prevent daytime temperatures from building up to a comfortable level (even with a solar cover). And so, even though the current temperature is 92 F, and the pool is around 86, the comfort level of 89 degrees is no longer sustainable.

Thus, out comes the portable electric pump with the garden hose. This year the weather has been so dry that the water runs off faster, without being absorbed as in years past. But even as we write, a pop-up thunderstorm is muttering its tentative growls. The cats in the window seats are on the alert, which is to say that when a rumbling is heard, their ears twitch, but so far only one eye is open amongst them.

The garden hose will take probably 16 to 18 hours to drain some 2500 gallons; water that has seen considerable action, both human and chemical. Yes, we know that there are test kits and such that allow proper maintenance of pH levels, but in an informal way, the bleaching of a bathing suits and floating toys or the greenish strands of algae have served equally well as harbingers of lack of balance.

On the down side, the pool was a great entertainment center for the younglings. And when they weren't there, it was a fine place to float around and savor a Blue or a Blue Light (none of that wishy-washy American stuff for me).

As in other seasons, this was actually the second pool of the season. In the past, we had cat claw damage on the inflatable collar which rendered the pool unusable, so we went to a metal frame version. This one developed a serious hole in the bottom, probably from the efforts of a mole who came up in the wrong place. The result was a second pool of the inflatable type, because no metal frame ones were locally available by the time the damage became unrecoverable.

I suppose that if you were to amortize the cost of the pool, supplies, electricity and water you'd end up having to charge the swimmers about $3 each for every swim. But it's been a long, droughty summer, and when you're floating there, toes up with a Blue in your hand, you don't think mercenarily. Life is too good, and so short.