That’s a look at our swimming pool on a warmer day.
For years, it provided a venue for fun and healthy exercise. It still generates a lot of exercise, but almost all of it is in the form of pool maintenance – vacuuming, scooping leaves, etc.
They say that a pool is a hole in the ground that you dump money into. I used to be able to laugh about that, but since we are often gone during the months when it is warm enough to swim comfortably, it seems to have become the pool’s primary function. I just don’t find it funny anymore, and when the wind-chill is in the 30s like it has been this week, I give serious thought to having the pool filled in and planting a garden.
Aside from the obvious expenses like chemicals and electricity, I have spent an awful lot over the years on skimmer baskets. This time of year, the basket would get so full of leaves that it was impossible to remove without turning off the pump, and if I didn’t get to it soon enough, the basket would often collapse and split.
I was complaining about that at the pool supply store two years ago, and the clerk said “That shouldn’t happen if you’re using the snorkel.”
“The what?” I said.
He scrounged around on the shelf for a while, and then he showed me a piece that screws into the skimmer basket to allow it to breathe when full.
I had been buying the same skimmer basket from the same store for years, and never knew the snorkel existed. I never even noticed that the bottom of the basket had a threaded spot for the snorkel to screw in.
Well, now I know.
Problem solved, right?
I no longer run through several baskets per season. The bad news is that the snorkel allows the pump to suck air instead of water whenever the basket is full of leaves, so now, instead of a $14 basket, I get to replace a $300 pump.
That garden is sounding better all the time.
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