Green Eyed Monster, Part Two

The green monster has awakened again and is more fierce than ever. You can find the first rise of the monster here Green Eyed Monster. This time the cause is due to the pool pump breaking, this has caused a community of algae, insects, and even a few amphibians. The pool has pretty much turned into the local pond, maybe it is time to buy a few fish. All jokes aside, I don't see it getting fixed until next summer when the weather calls for swimming. 

China Flu

 

The calm before the storm, as South Africa gets its first positive case of the China Flu. Call it what you want, CoVid-19 which is cased by the SARS-CoV-2 virus was made in China, and now it has become a pandemic across the the entire world. ,

Here deep south in Africa, we waited with bated breath, excuse the pun, for the China Flu to arrive and here it is. A Chartered Accountant from Hilton who traveled on a ski holiday to northern Italy with his family and friends, is now known as patient zero but was only diagnosed on his 3rd day back. They say the the incubation period is 3-4 days from infection which makes more likely he got the China Flu virus either at the airport or on the flight back to South Africa. Lets hope that e have contained it in time.

So here I sit, hardly any wind coming down the gorge. Is this the calm before the storm?

Rain Sets In

 

Ahhh, this reminds me of my school days in Natal, as the weekend comes round, the rain sets in. Oh well it looks like I am going to enjoy a lovely quiet weekend at home. Noice!

Pool Vacuuming

Matthew has stepped up to the plate and help me get our swimming pool back to swimming condition after the big storm on Saturday. It was hard going with so much debris in the pool. First we had to clear all the floating big pieces of leaves and branches, then vacuum up the bottom and clear the weir every hour as it got too full rather quickly.  

Storm Pool

Surveying our garden after the big storm yesterday, I must say we got off quite lightly other than my swimming pool which was sparkling yesterday morning, and now just a cesspool of debris. Oh well I better start again trying to get the pool back to swimming condition.   

Swimming Pool Overflowing

 

Our swimming pool is overflowing for the second time this week after 120mm of rain has been measured in my rain gauge for the last 4 days. Well it is the weekend and it looks like I have some backwashing to do.

Pump No More

 

When things go wrong, they seem to happen all at the same time, and these last few months have been one of those times yet here I am living day by day, trying to keep my head above water and now this. Last week our swimming pool pump started squirting water out of the pump chamber through some cracks that had developed. Another problem to tackle, not sure how to go about it I phoned a friend James, and asked if he could check my pump and see if it was repairable. 

He came back after inspecting the damaged pump and gave me the bad news that due to the immense pressures, the pump can not be repaired but don't worry he has a plan. Later that afternoon, James contacted me and informed me that when he converted his swimming pool to a pond many moons ago, he put his old pump away in storage and after checking, his old pump will work. 

So today James arrived with a swimming pool expert and replaced my broken pump with his at no charge to me other than the expert's labour costs and fittings that he used. Helping one person might not change the whole world, but it could change the world for one person. Thanks to James for paying it forward.

Pain Pool

 

Sigh, I feel the pain as I struggle to get our swimming pool perfect for this coming Saturday. Yes I kept the pool cover on for a week longer than I should and the result was an stinking cesspool. Thankfully we had rain last Friday, 30mm of mana filled the pool so that I could vacuum the fine sludge from bottom. The pool is crystal clear but has this slight sulphur smell which I can't get rid of. 

Oh well I have a few days to go so let it rain, let it rain, pleeeeeeeease.

Much Better

 

Now this is much better after 48 hours of loving attention, the pool is starting to turn blue. It still has a slight green tinge from the micro particles too small to be filtered by the sand filter. I need now to use chemicals to coagulate these micro particles into larger pieces so that the filter can remove them from the water but that is for about a weeks time, just to let it all rest for a while.

Getting There

 

After our pool went to the dogs last week, we started on a strict regime Monday evening to get the pool back to its normal self, sparkly blue. And this what it looks like this morning 36 hours later, a cloudy green. Still a long way to go but hopefully we can swim soon.

Green Eyed Monster

 

My world has turned green today as the green eyed monster raised it's ugly head. No I am not taking about Lynda, shown in the above photo, although she does have green eyes, she is not the green eyed monster but in the news today, it is all about Hellen Zille, the Witch is Back, and the reason why the mayor Herman Mashaba shirked his duties yesterday (read all about it here) and has tendered his resignation. Not good at all for the City of Johannesburg, not good for us as a people.

Anywho, the Springboks won against Japan in the Rugby World Cup to progress to the semi-finals. The green and gold victory might be a silver lining for us in the gloomy day. Talk about gloom, there is our swimming pool. As you can see it is green and murky. A few weeks back it was nice and blue but the now it has all gone wrong. So starts the long progress to getting it back all sparkly blue again.

Back to Blue

And this is the result of my loving attention that I gave the swimming pool on Saturday, a stunning blue pool. After the Hulk green tinge, it is wonderful to see a pool back to blue again, inviting. Sad though soon we have to cover up the pool and bed it down for the winter dry spell. 

Green Pool

So this is the result of all the thunderstorms and rain, our pool is full but green. Eish, so green you could walk on the water. Oh well green is better than empty.

River Matthew

Today was spending what little time I have left with Matthew as I don't know what the future holds. Matthew enjoys the animals, now that Maxy has crossed over River Song has become his favourite. 

Blessed Start

A few days ago the water in our swimming pool was over 30cm low and below the weir so we had to turn off the pool pump because municipal water is expensive and we didn't want to add to our expenses. 

Yesterday, the last day of the year it started raining, and raining. Firstly we were happy that the pool was finally getting full and secondly the rain would put a damper on Old Year's Eve firework celebrations which happen in the suburbs so much that all the local pets are terrified and a few even die.

We went to bed only after midnight just in cause some arsehole decides that fireworks in the rain would be fun. Once our dogs and cats were safely tucked away, we crashed only to crawl out of bed about 11 in the morning to find our garden flooded and pool overflowing. 

What a blessed start to 2019. This year is going to be way better the last horrible one.

Pool Covered

And finally I get my pool covered, after so much water has evapourated during the winter dry months and the summer rains are about to fall. We sold our white elephant, the outside walk-in fridge, about a month ago and we always wanted the pool covered so why not.

The winds come howling down the valley and the evapouration from our pool is horrendous. To slow down evpouration I had to turn off the pool heaters so we could not even use our pool in winter. Now things are different.  

And it Rains

Driving home yesterday after visiting my mom the rain started falling and it didn't stop. By midday today our garden started flooding and our swimming pool started overflowing. Yesterday the pool was about 10cm below the edge and after raining all night and all morning. The 10cm is now minus with water over flowing since midday. 

True Blue

It has being just about a month since the big storm that struck the west rand and I can say finally my swimming pool is ready to be swum in. About time as today has been a scorcher of a day with temperatures in the mid 30s. Okay the Solar pool heaters are not running efficiently due to an installation issue which is be rectified next week, it is great to see my pool blue again. Hey true blue, fair dinkum, you’re back.

Pool Buoys

A few weeks back, the hailstorm damaged our pool solar heaters on the roof and they started leaking. All this time we could not use our poor pump as the shut-off valve was not working as it should. Finally after all these weeks, our house insurance sent in the Pool Buoys to replace the damaged panels.

The installers, Boy and Mpho from the Pool Buoys arrived this morning with the new panels. The new panels are different than the old damaged ones as I was told by the assessor they don’t have that system in the country anymore and would have to order in. When the new panels were off-loaded and the old ones removed it was obvious that the new panels are bigger than the older ones, by a metre so they had to re-arrange the layout. Yay soon I will get my sparkling clean swimming pool back just in time for summer.

Pool Inspector

Oh no, the swimming pool is slowly turning green. Last week Monday afternoon we had an awful hail storm and the next day when the swimming pool pump kicked in, we had water pouring off the roof. The turned on the bypass but that didn't stop the water reaching the roof but slowed it down a bit.

The insurance assessors came and said that the swimming pool's solar heaters on the roof has been damaged by the hail and needs to be replaced. That was a week ago and we are still waiting for the insurance to get back to us. In the meantime, our cat Princess, does not like what she sees during her garden inspections. What normally is sparkling blue water is going a greener shade of blue. How long will we have to wait until I can put the swimming pools pump back on?