Today was a very productive day outside; I did what was most important to me which was get the pool going. Last week I had scheduled to have Jelly Belly Pool and Spas come out and open up the pool for the summer and I made sure that my husband and I took a sample of the pool water to have it tested so that we could get all of the proper additives to get the correct PH balance, alkalinity hardness and chlorine levels. I thought that we were all set, but our son informed us that the guys from Jelly Belly had had issues with the connections, essentially the system was leaking a lot of water, and needed to come back. I figured no problem they would eventually get it together by the weekend but that wasn’t the case to my surprise; according to our son, they still had to come back on Monday to fix the leaks.
When we got home late Friday night; it was too late to do anything and yesterday after we had come back from the movies, I still wasn’t in much of a mood to fiddle around with the system, but I did inspect their work and already I had seen what the problem was; they had hooked up the chlorinator too close to the filter which would make changing the chlorine canister almost impossible during the summer. So yesterday I decided that this morning I would unhook the chlorinator and reconnect it back to the way it should be connected and voila, to my delight, we aren’t experiencing any leaks. Hooray the pool is running and all that is left to do is add everything and presto, we are in poolside business.
Another thing that made me very happy was that I got to smell the first rose from my huge rosebush in back; it smells like candy it is so sweet. I also saw my wild strawberries emerge green and ready to ripen as long as the chipmunks stay away from them. The irises are all out as well as other purple perennials that I have forgotten their name, but they self propagate which endears them to me even more.
No matter what is going on with the world or with our lives; a few minutes of sitting amongst the flowers makes everything else fade into the background. I almost forgot, I have seen two hummingbirds so far and they are gorgeous.
The peonies are also coming out to bloom; the ones in the picture are from the back near the pool. I like to leave those on the bush to give color to all of the surrounding greenery; they are such a feminine shade of pink and when fully opened, they are so lush and heavy; one of my favorite flowers to behold in the back.
We have been lucky these past few days; the breeze is cool, the temperatures just right, making it so pleasant to be outside.
It’s that time of year, the pool must be closed, the dark cover that replaces the gorgeous azure blue of the water really changes the look of our backyard, it instantly darkens the mood. We’re doing it fairly early this year to minimize the amount of vacuuming I have to do to prepare for the closing, I’m too tired to do it this year. Despite the work having a pool entails, it does create a wonderful setting for summer, it’s hard to feel awful when you are sitting near the water. I’m going to miss having pretty water to look at, frogs to rescue and a relaxing spot to watch bees and butterflies.
laurieanichols 