We got the cover on the pool. This process is not nearly so exicting as getting the cover off. It takes about a half hour (with numerous helpers). All that's really required is to make sure the pool's not currently green and to dump a bottle of algecide in the pool before applying the cover. And I am not sure what's being really implied in the statement, "wow daddy, the pool is really blue."
We did some yard clean-up. I brush hogged the more unkept edge portions of my back yard (i.e. I ran an electric weed trimmer with the help of two 100 foot extension cords.) It's amazing how much ground you can cover with that arrangement. (that could be a little more than 125,000 square feet if you think about it too much. I didn't think about it that much, and didn't cover that much ground either).
In the process of taming my yard near our more well behaved garden, I bashed my head on some low hanging ornamental pear tree limbs. This precipitated a trip to the garage for a pair of large pruning shears and a bow saw. This immediately resulted in a loud and ringing "un-supervised" daddy emergency warning signal to the rest of my family. The close proximity of tree modifying tools and "daddy" tends to result in massive family centered branch removal projects that highly involve my children.
I was greeted (not several minutes later) with a tall glass of water from my nine year old daughter asking, "daddy, mom wants to know if you're being supervised well enough?" A little while after that, this same daughter said, "mommy, I'll finish (name of some bonus chore here), you go out and supervise daddy."
All told I did have about a 15 minute (times 4 children and 2 parents) heap (or is that a passel?) of branches to haul to the burn pile. But, in comparisson to some of my previous Arbor day modification projects, this was a small bundle of twigs. I guess the supervision must have worked to a degree.
I resumed my trimming, got to our south facing fence and promptly ran into an old scrub stump. It was an interesting amalgamation of sucker Maple and Mimosa. Not terribly big on the top, but the same could be said for an iceberg. An hour or two later with the help of a pick axe, a maul, a shovel and a saws-all, I won.
In the process everyone else got to rake and haul leaves and other random bits and chunks of yard debris. Assorted children probably worked the hardest on their haggling skills - trying to get mom to define how much yard work consistituted being "done."
The yard looks much nicer, the pool looks more covered, my back is much sorer and my children are done with yardwork - for last weekend.
Can't wait for camping this weekend.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Musical Truth
A couple months ago I received a call from my mom wanting to know what I thought about a Karaoke singing game that she was thinking about giving as a present to two of my children (who happen to have birthdays about a month apart.) My parents are ardent singers who have a passion for singing. They like singing well, singing harmony, singing with family, singing with friends - they just truly enjoy singing.
It is one of their great sadness's to see the art of singing just not cultivated these days as it was when they were growing up.
My family has been not that different than our American culture in that way. We sing, at church. We sporadically sing at home - having small children "Only a boy named David," "The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock," "Six little Ducks that I Once Knew," "Amazing Grace." But we certainly haven't worked on singing and don't really have a particular talent with it. We're not tone deaf, but people certainly don't flock around when they hear us sing either.
My wife and children are also occasionally blessed with my "renditions" of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" or other such highly classical pieces. Especially when I add my own words to them:
So, a karaoke game? Well... Okay, I am sure the kids would at least somewhat enjoy it.
But the game arrived and was dutifully given on the first of the birthdays. It came with a microphone, and with somewhat less than usual "setting up" on the computer, various hymns, choruses and other more contemporary Christian songs were emerging from the computer's speakers with the words scrolling along in time for a person to sing with.
But then we noticed how the game worked. The words came along on a musical staff, and the computer would show you a little lighted cursor, on that same staff indicating what note you were singing. If the cursor glowed or sparkled orange you were on pitch. When you were on pitch you had a numbered point tally that accumulated. If you were "off " the cursor was blue - and no points accrued. You could watch the cursor raise or lower with your pitch. As the words scrolled across the screen they would be on the note that they were to be sung. If you sang the word with that note the cursor would be bright orange. If you were particularly on pitch the cursor would kind of explode orange and distinctly sparkle. If you didn't, the cursor just stayed blue.
It was humorous to watch myself (and my family) as we initially sang. We would certainly "hit" some of the notes. And we would certainly "miss" many as well. It was particularly humbling when I saw how poorly I "held" my notes. I would be initially "On," sparkling orange and happy and then my voice would crack, wobble, warble or otherwise go off key. And I would watch as the "dumb" cursor displayed my inept singing in patent, flat "blue."
Before you sang a song, the game would even tell you what kind of a score you needed to get Silver, Gold or Platinum distribution.
My first songs were good enough to be "distributed to friends and family."
After our first couple of songs my wife and I "retired" downstairs while the girls kept singing and warbling.
In a few minutes one of my daughters came down mad. Not out of control, but her internal vegetable plate was very well steamed. "I don't like the scores the game gives me."
"Why not?" I asked. She said, "It's not scoring me high enough."
And I laughed. I told her that if you sing well, you will score well. But none of us sings well at this point. I said, "we're all terrible right now."
She backed up and was almost stunned: this child isn't used to being "bad" at anything. "We are?" "Yes," I said. And I explained that with practice and if she and her sister's worked at keeping the note cursor "orange" they would score well. If they didn't, they would score like daddy had.
With a few broccoli knocked off her plate, and with some serious questioning in her face, she trudged up stairs to bed. But over the next few days and weeks she and her sisters worked on their singing, with the help of a little orange musical cursor.
And lo and behold, she and her sisters started to get Silver and Gold and Platinum on their songs.
It was amazing, when you truly sang on pitch, you scored well. When you didn't - you didn't.
It didn't matter how well you thought you sang. It didn't matter how well someone else thought you sang. It only mattered if you were actually on pitch (at the right time.)
The game was and is about musical truth. And that truth wasn't relative, it was absolute.
There's something to be learned from that little musical game. There's what I think, there's what you think. There what I say, there's what you say. There's what I do, there's what you do. But what counts is what is true. If anything I think, say or do isn't true, it is of no worth. If anything you think, say or do isn't true, it is of no worth.
There is Someone who knows what that the true pitch is, and how well we each are singing the song.
And He is also the solution for all our wrong notes.
It is one of their great sadness's to see the art of singing just not cultivated these days as it was when they were growing up.
My family has been not that different than our American culture in that way. We sing, at church. We sporadically sing at home - having small children "Only a boy named David," "The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock," "Six little Ducks that I Once Knew," "Amazing Grace." But we certainly haven't worked on singing and don't really have a particular talent with it. We're not tone deaf, but people certainly don't flock around when they hear us sing either.
My wife and children are also occasionally blessed with my "renditions" of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" or other such highly classical pieces. Especially when I add my own words to them:
Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world,
Pink and Purple, Blue and Green they are precious as you've seen
Jesus loves the little children of the world
...
Periwinkle, Chartreuse too, and a pretty Mid-night Blue
...
Khaki, Tan and Olive Green, Camo so you can't be seen
Jesus loves the little children of the world
So, a karaoke game? Well... Okay, I am sure the kids would at least somewhat enjoy it.
But the game arrived and was dutifully given on the first of the birthdays. It came with a microphone, and with somewhat less than usual "setting up" on the computer, various hymns, choruses and other more contemporary Christian songs were emerging from the computer's speakers with the words scrolling along in time for a person to sing with.
But then we noticed how the game worked. The words came along on a musical staff, and the computer would show you a little lighted cursor, on that same staff indicating what note you were singing. If the cursor glowed or sparkled orange you were on pitch. When you were on pitch you had a numbered point tally that accumulated. If you were "off " the cursor was blue - and no points accrued. You could watch the cursor raise or lower with your pitch. As the words scrolled across the screen they would be on the note that they were to be sung. If you sang the word with that note the cursor would be bright orange. If you were particularly on pitch the cursor would kind of explode orange and distinctly sparkle. If you didn't, the cursor just stayed blue.
It was humorous to watch myself (and my family) as we initially sang. We would certainly "hit" some of the notes. And we would certainly "miss" many as well. It was particularly humbling when I saw how poorly I "held" my notes. I would be initially "On," sparkling orange and happy and then my voice would crack, wobble, warble or otherwise go off key. And I would watch as the "dumb" cursor displayed my inept singing in patent, flat "blue."
Before you sang a song, the game would even tell you what kind of a score you needed to get Silver, Gold or Platinum distribution.
My first songs were good enough to be "distributed to friends and family."
After our first couple of songs my wife and I "retired" downstairs while the girls kept singing and warbling.
In a few minutes one of my daughters came down mad. Not out of control, but her internal vegetable plate was very well steamed. "I don't like the scores the game gives me."
"Why not?" I asked. She said, "It's not scoring me high enough."
And I laughed. I told her that if you sing well, you will score well. But none of us sings well at this point. I said, "we're all terrible right now."
She backed up and was almost stunned: this child isn't used to being "bad" at anything. "We are?" "Yes," I said. And I explained that with practice and if she and her sister's worked at keeping the note cursor "orange" they would score well. If they didn't, they would score like daddy had.
With a few broccoli knocked off her plate, and with some serious questioning in her face, she trudged up stairs to bed. But over the next few days and weeks she and her sisters worked on their singing, with the help of a little orange musical cursor.
And lo and behold, she and her sisters started to get Silver and Gold and Platinum on their songs.
It was amazing, when you truly sang on pitch, you scored well. When you didn't - you didn't.
It didn't matter how well you thought you sang. It didn't matter how well someone else thought you sang. It only mattered if you were actually on pitch (at the right time.)
The game was and is about musical truth. And that truth wasn't relative, it was absolute.
There's something to be learned from that little musical game. There's what I think, there's what you think. There what I say, there's what you say. There's what I do, there's what you do. But what counts is what is true. If anything I think, say or do isn't true, it is of no worth. If anything you think, say or do isn't true, it is of no worth.
There is Someone who knows what that the true pitch is, and how well we each are singing the song.
And He is also the solution for all our wrong notes.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
A German Blast from the Past (Part 1)
As a junior in high school my family hosted a German exchange student for the entire year. Jürgen was also a junior and attended school and all the other activities that I and my family did that year (a family vacation to Yellowstone, and a trip Jürgen and I took to San Jose California come to mind.)
Jürgen learned how to play basketball. One-on-one (or 21 when my brother was around.) He rapidly learned that to get (any) rebounds or generally have any shot at winning - he must be much more physical than he was at first.
He learned.
He also worked very hard on his English. He didn't just want to speak "precise" English, he was after the vernacular that was everyday language at our house. And he got it right, slang and all. After about the first four months the only phrase that he couldn't quite "get" was "right on!" It's interesting how specific inflection and enunciation are with a expression like that. If it is too precisely stated, said too fast, or maybe too slow, or with the emphasis just slightly off - the phrase just doesn't work. He became so fluent that when people met him for the first time later in the year, they had no clue he wasn't from Colorado.
Some of the lasting memories from that time included a late night youth retreat discussion that revolved around Jürgen attempting to tell us Americans what his name would sound like without the Umlaut (Jurgen instead of Jürgen.) We just couldn't hear it at all, both pronunciations were absolutely identical to our English hearing ears. After about the forth or fifth attempt the conversation just dissolved into hysterical laughter. We were complete basket cases in learning the finer points of German elocution.
There was also the time we both took the bus home from school and when I called my parents - in a panic - to see when they would be home to take me to basketball practice they said, "but you drove to school this morning ..."
During our trip to Yellowstone he had more fun and got more amazement from the drive through the barrenness of Wyoming than in the national park itself. He took pictures and pictures and pictures of "nothing." Jürgen by a population "4" sign, Jürgen in front of miles of nothing. Pictures of virtual ghost towns. You name a picture of "nothing" and he had a picture of him in it. In Germany, although possessing expanses of "rural" places, there are always people and dwellings around. Wyoming, on the other hand, has hundreds of square miles of "nothing." And "nothing" is evidently quite interesting if you have always been around "something."
Anyway, this past week (23 years later), Jürgen and his ten year old son came for a visit. My wife and children had heard stories, but were in eager anticipation of his arrival. Jürgen and his son initially flew into Denver where my parents met them. They got to stay with my Uncle Maury there as well and took in a Colorado Rockies baseball game.
to be continued...
Jürgen learned how to play basketball. One-on-one (or 21 when my brother was around.) He rapidly learned that to get (any) rebounds or generally have any shot at winning - he must be much more physical than he was at first.
He learned.
He also worked very hard on his English. He didn't just want to speak "precise" English, he was after the vernacular that was everyday language at our house. And he got it right, slang and all. After about the first four months the only phrase that he couldn't quite "get" was "right on!" It's interesting how specific inflection and enunciation are with a expression like that. If it is too precisely stated, said too fast, or maybe too slow, or with the emphasis just slightly off - the phrase just doesn't work. He became so fluent that when people met him for the first time later in the year, they had no clue he wasn't from Colorado.
Some of the lasting memories from that time included a late night youth retreat discussion that revolved around Jürgen attempting to tell us Americans what his name would sound like without the Umlaut (Jurgen instead of Jürgen.) We just couldn't hear it at all, both pronunciations were absolutely identical to our English hearing ears. After about the forth or fifth attempt the conversation just dissolved into hysterical laughter. We were complete basket cases in learning the finer points of German elocution.
There was also the time we both took the bus home from school and when I called my parents - in a panic - to see when they would be home to take me to basketball practice they said, "but you drove to school this morning ..."
During our trip to Yellowstone he had more fun and got more amazement from the drive through the barrenness of Wyoming than in the national park itself. He took pictures and pictures and pictures of "nothing." Jürgen by a population "4" sign, Jürgen in front of miles of nothing. Pictures of virtual ghost towns. You name a picture of "nothing" and he had a picture of him in it. In Germany, although possessing expanses of "rural" places, there are always people and dwellings around. Wyoming, on the other hand, has hundreds of square miles of "nothing." And "nothing" is evidently quite interesting if you have always been around "something."
Anyway, this past week (23 years later), Jürgen and his ten year old son came for a visit. My wife and children had heard stories, but were in eager anticipation of his arrival. Jürgen and his son initially flew into Denver where my parents met them. They got to stay with my Uncle Maury there as well and took in a Colorado Rockies baseball game.
to be continued...
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Last Week
Began with a business trip to the Chicago area. I and a member of our lock assembly crew travelled to a new jail construction site to replace small o-rings in 224 locks in two days.
I disassembled:
Just so.
I rapidly rediscovered (yet again) that I can successfully do exactly one thing at once. To wit: Toward the end of our first day (around lock 100) one of the on-site installers asked me about a problem they were having with a different lock.
My brain seized. My current sum total synapse activity consisted of "Remove, Remove, Place, Remove, Remove, Place, Place, Remove, Remove, Place, MOVE." Ting! "Remove, Remove, Place..." I was an old fashioned typewriter: finish one line of your letter and Ting! Bash the carriage back to the next line's beginning and resume furious typing. (I just realized that 'old fashioned' and typewriter are completely redundant, apologies to all readers who just said "what's a typewriter?")
It felt like swimming upstream in setting concrete. Just processing the installer's question and attempting to actually think/solve/analyze took an amazing amount of effort and time. During that time I had to put down the disassembly tools and very deliberately stop all physical activity because I could literally not think and do anything else at that point. Thank goodness I wasn't chewing gum.
After the business trip (we did get all the locks done, and actually solved a few other problems as well on the way), I had a day at work to do an expense report, answer, solve, engineer and email various workish things.
On Thursday night we left for the "State" swimming meet.
Three of our girls had qualified either in relays or individual events and all were very excited. We loaded up our van and headed out on the 3 1/2 hour trip up to Scottsboro. The next day two of the girls did breaststroke, one of those also did freestyle and all three participated in the Medley Relay. There were tears having not achieved some goals incentive's, but it was all in all a good (and not too hot) day. At the end there was a team pizza, coke and dessert party at a park nearby complete with a merry-go-round. In essence the swim team tanked up on pepperoni pizza, cookies, brownies and soda-pop and then had the older ones spin carb-loaded masses of smaller swimmers as fast as they could on the merry-go-round.
Hmmm.
Friday at 3am (yes, in the morning) Abi began visibly displaying the effects of a stomach virus. Soon after Katherine's system decided that she had to have it too. A bit later my wife said, "I don't feel well, how's your stomach feeling?" My system then woke up enough to realize that it needed to join in the fun as well. For most of that morning I, My wife and two daughter's lay in curled up nausea on the motel room beds while the other's were stuck watching Saturday morning cartoons.
We had to scratch (cancel out) from all the Saturday swimming events and eventually were able to drive the 3 1/2 hours home. I hardily do not recommend spending any of your Saturday's in that manner. Fortunately all four of us began to feel better as the day wore on. Unfortunately, our almost two year old decided, Sunday night, that he had been left out of the festivities and needed to participate in the fun as well.
But so goes a week in the life of our family.
I disassembled:
- Remove cylinder cover, place to the side - just so
- Remove lock side plate screws, place in cylinder cover - just so
- Place side plate next to cylinder cover - just so
- Remove funky lock piece (actuator) place on side plate - just so
- Remove plate and spring from lock cylinder rod
- Place spring in cylinder cover - just so
- Place little plate on actuator on side plate - just so
- Remove dead latch spring, place inside other spring - just so
- Remove five lock body attachment screws
- Place screws on cylinder cover - just so
- Move remaining lock assembly and removed parts over to other guy
Just so.
I rapidly rediscovered (yet again) that I can successfully do exactly one thing at once. To wit: Toward the end of our first day (around lock 100) one of the on-site installers asked me about a problem they were having with a different lock.
My brain seized. My current sum total synapse activity consisted of "Remove, Remove, Place, Remove, Remove, Place, Place, Remove, Remove, Place, MOVE." Ting! "Remove, Remove, Place..." I was an old fashioned typewriter: finish one line of your letter and Ting! Bash the carriage back to the next line's beginning and resume furious typing. (I just realized that 'old fashioned' and typewriter are completely redundant, apologies to all readers who just said "what's a typewriter?")
It felt like swimming upstream in setting concrete. Just processing the installer's question and attempting to actually think/solve/analyze took an amazing amount of effort and time. During that time I had to put down the disassembly tools and very deliberately stop all physical activity because I could literally not think and do anything else at that point. Thank goodness I wasn't chewing gum.
After the business trip (we did get all the locks done, and actually solved a few other problems as well on the way), I had a day at work to do an expense report, answer, solve, engineer and email various workish things.
On Thursday night we left for the "State" swimming meet.
Three of our girls had qualified either in relays or individual events and all were very excited. We loaded up our van and headed out on the 3 1/2 hour trip up to Scottsboro. The next day two of the girls did breaststroke, one of those also did freestyle and all three participated in the Medley Relay. There were tears having not achieved some goals incentive's, but it was all in all a good (and not too hot) day. At the end there was a team pizza, coke and dessert party at a park nearby complete with a merry-go-round. In essence the swim team tanked up on pepperoni pizza, cookies, brownies and soda-pop and then had the older ones spin carb-loaded masses of smaller swimmers as fast as they could on the merry-go-round.
Hmmm.
Friday at 3am (yes, in the morning) Abi began visibly displaying the effects of a stomach virus. Soon after Katherine's system decided that she had to have it too. A bit later my wife said, "I don't feel well, how's your stomach feeling?" My system then woke up enough to realize that it needed to join in the fun as well. For most of that morning I, My wife and two daughter's lay in curled up nausea on the motel room beds while the other's were stuck watching Saturday morning cartoons.
We had to scratch (cancel out) from all the Saturday swimming events and eventually were able to drive the 3 1/2 hours home. I hardily do not recommend spending any of your Saturday's in that manner. Fortunately all four of us began to feel better as the day wore on. Unfortunately, our almost two year old decided, Sunday night, that he had been left out of the festivities and needed to participate in the fun as well.
But so goes a week in the life of our family.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
A Visual Update on the Garden of Misfit Plants
Some visuals of our
gardens on fathers day.
gardens on fathers day.Lest anyone might think that working the earth and fertilizing the soil is unproductive.
(Three year old provided for scale and with the season's first zucchinis)
And just to show that the more obedient plants weren't to be out done by their unruly neighboring garden: Here's a basket of tomatoes picked the same morning from the Garden of (more) Obedient Plants. - Six year old added because he could lift the basket.
Have a wonderful fathers day.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Things I know
God is real, and He created it all.
My wife loves me
A child that loves sweets
Each day is a new day
Finishing a thing is a joy to me
There is always something to fix
A child that loves very sour things but will never admit that they're sour
If it's not chocolate why bother
Exercise makes me feel better
I can live for days on praise from my wife
A child who loves words
I am a sinner
A smile from a child lifts my soul
A child who's kind, sweet and terrible
I am forgiven
I love a consistent routine
I am random
A child who's nuts
I value being valued
Summer in Alabama is hot
A child who builds
There are times to talk
There are times to not
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
On a Pool Cover Part 2
"The Year of Spider Man" concluded:
"So... how are you getting it off there?"
Hmm.
That was a good question. I was basking in my pool cover actually being suspended in the air above the pool to dry, and I hadn't even really thought about getting it down.
Well, I could get it down easily enough - back into the pool. But the whole point was to get it down dry. Dry.
Hmm.
I decided to marshal the troops. Shortish, youngish, smallish troops who somewhat resemble me. I positioned them on either far end of the cover to hold it up as one side of the cover was released from its rope web attachment to the fence.
Did I mention that the cover is heavy?
I must not have learned much from the previous year's attempt at lifting the cover. One year's growth hadn't increased the family horsepower enough to keep the cover lifted. As I loosened the web of suspension, despite the valiant efforts of all involved, gravity - the Kryptonite of this process - inexorably dragged the cover back onto (and into) the pool.
By the time I extricated the entire cover from my web the whole cover was more or less (really more) thoroughly re-wetted. I and my troops draped and re-draped it over the fence and left it to dry as best it could. Eventually I dragged it onto the yard for folding and then storing when my family was off erranding somewhere. And I slunk back into my house to lick my wounds.
I was however able to earn a (slight) commendation from my lovely wife: "How on earth did you lift the cover onto that shelf by yourself?" I chose to take that to mean that I was wonderfully strong and, well, really strong and, well, I don't know, but it was the only remotely encouraging part of that year's episode with the cover.
Year Three, or "The Year of the Sort-of-Tight Rope:"
I started hearing, "Daddy, when are we going to open the pool?" in early April. By the end of April it began to feel like a road trip, "Daddy, is time yet?" "Daddy, how warm does in need to be to open the pool?" "Can we swim today?" "Well, when can we swim?" "Daddy, it's warm enough, I won't be cold" "Are we there yet?" "Are we there yet?" "Daddy, I need to use the bathroom"
Ok, all but the last one or two or three.
One warm afternoon I decided that the cover's time had come. Only I hadn't thought much about the process this time, not that thinking had helped me much the last two years anyway. It occurred to me that at the end of last year we had draped the cover over the fence to finally let it dry. But the pool fence is so short that the cover had to be repeatedly folded over. What if I rigged a rope over the fence line, but much higher than the fence line, kind of a clothes line on steroids?
Yeah, that could work. The cover would be off the pool, but would dry vertically - not taking up any yard space!
I rounded up two long 2x4's, a couple of those garage organizing hooks with the large wood threads made to screw into rafters, two pulleys, some 1/2 inch diameter nylon rope and two of those ratcheting shipping straps. I didn't even try to explain my plan this time, but as I was dragging my collection over to the pool deck I did get a raised eyebrow and a "when there is something we can help with, let me know" from my wife.
I screwed one organizing hook into one end of each 2x4 and attached a pulley to each hook. I then ran my rope through each pulley and used the shipping straps attach my 2x4's to fence posts on opposite ends of the pool. Using my pulleys and some creatively knotted loops, I pulled my rope line to where it was hanging just above the fence. Good enough.
I started disconnecting the cover from the pool deck, and which triggered an immediate, "can we go swimming now?" Soon I had most of my troops arrayed and we dragged the cover off the pool and started pulling it over my improvisational clothes line.
Did I mention that the pool cover is heavy?
My rope immediately sagged onto the fence. No problem, I yanked on my pulley system some more to put more tension on the rope and raise it a up a bit. Each time more cover was pulled over the rope, gravity would pull it down, and I would tighten it more. Then I happened to look up and saw the Achilles Heel of my contraption: one of the organizing hooks was bent almost to breaking and the hook's threads were about to pull out of the wood altogether. I took that to mean that I shouldn't tighten the rope any further.
My wonderful clothes line started out at about 9 feet high on each end, and ended up about at about 4 feet one inch high in the middle. Or in other words, my wonderful contraption had gained me a whole inch of height compared to just draping the cover over the fence to begin with.
Oh well.
Instead of re-draping the cover over the line (which would have finished yanking the hook out of the wood) I allowed the cover to run out on the pool deck on one side and onto some of the yard on the other. I had also failed to wash it while it was on the pool, so I washed it as it was. Let it dry overnight, folded it up and -with the help of my beautiful bride- stuffed it on the top shelf in the shed the following evening.
The children rejoiced and went swimming, or more accurately they rejoiced, jumped in the pool and then screamed "It t ts, c c c c ooooo ld d d d."
Ahhh, the sound's of almost summer.
"So... how are you getting it off there?"
Hmm.
That was a good question. I was basking in my pool cover actually being suspended in the air above the pool to dry, and I hadn't even really thought about getting it down.
Well, I could get it down easily enough - back into the pool. But the whole point was to get it down dry. Dry.
Hmm.
I decided to marshal the troops. Shortish, youngish, smallish troops who somewhat resemble me. I positioned them on either far end of the cover to hold it up as one side of the cover was released from its rope web attachment to the fence.
Did I mention that the cover is heavy?
I must not have learned much from the previous year's attempt at lifting the cover. One year's growth hadn't increased the family horsepower enough to keep the cover lifted. As I loosened the web of suspension, despite the valiant efforts of all involved, gravity - the Kryptonite of this process - inexorably dragged the cover back onto (and into) the pool.
By the time I extricated the entire cover from my web the whole cover was more or less (really more) thoroughly re-wetted. I and my troops draped and re-draped it over the fence and left it to dry as best it could. Eventually I dragged it onto the yard for folding and then storing when my family was off erranding somewhere. And I slunk back into my house to lick my wounds.
I was however able to earn a (slight) commendation from my lovely wife: "How on earth did you lift the cover onto that shelf by yourself?" I chose to take that to mean that I was wonderfully strong and, well, really strong and, well, I don't know, but it was the only remotely encouraging part of that year's episode with the cover.
Year Three, or "The Year of the Sort-of-Tight Rope:"
I started hearing, "Daddy, when are we going to open the pool?" in early April. By the end of April it began to feel like a road trip, "Daddy, is time yet?" "Daddy, how warm does in need to be to open the pool?" "Can we swim today?" "Well, when can we swim?" "Daddy, it's warm enough, I won't be cold" "Are we there yet?" "Are we there yet?" "Daddy, I need to use the bathroom"
Ok, all but the last one or two or three.
One warm afternoon I decided that the cover's time had come. Only I hadn't thought much about the process this time, not that thinking had helped me much the last two years anyway. It occurred to me that at the end of last year we had draped the cover over the fence to finally let it dry. But the pool fence is so short that the cover had to be repeatedly folded over. What if I rigged a rope over the fence line, but much higher than the fence line, kind of a clothes line on steroids?
Yeah, that could work. The cover would be off the pool, but would dry vertically - not taking up any yard space!
I rounded up two long 2x4's, a couple of those garage organizing hooks with the large wood threads made to screw into rafters, two pulleys, some 1/2 inch diameter nylon rope and two of those ratcheting shipping straps. I didn't even try to explain my plan this time, but as I was dragging my collection over to the pool deck I did get a raised eyebrow and a "when there is something we can help with, let me know" from my wife.
I screwed one organizing hook into one end of each 2x4 and attached a pulley to each hook. I then ran my rope through each pulley and used the shipping straps attach my 2x4's to fence posts on opposite ends of the pool. Using my pulleys and some creatively knotted loops, I pulled my rope line to where it was hanging just above the fence. Good enough.
I started disconnecting the cover from the pool deck, and which triggered an immediate, "can we go swimming now?" Soon I had most of my troops arrayed and we dragged the cover off the pool and started pulling it over my improvisational clothes line.
Did I mention that the pool cover is heavy?
My rope immediately sagged onto the fence. No problem, I yanked on my pulley system some more to put more tension on the rope and raise it a up a bit. Each time more cover was pulled over the rope, gravity would pull it down, and I would tighten it more. Then I happened to look up and saw the Achilles Heel of my contraption: one of the organizing hooks was bent almost to breaking and the hook's threads were about to pull out of the wood altogether. I took that to mean that I shouldn't tighten the rope any further.
My wonderful clothes line started out at about 9 feet high on each end, and ended up about at about 4 feet one inch high in the middle. Or in other words, my wonderful contraption had gained me a whole inch of height compared to just draping the cover over the fence to begin with.
Oh well.
Instead of re-draping the cover over the line (which would have finished yanking the hook out of the wood) I allowed the cover to run out on the pool deck on one side and onto some of the yard on the other. I had also failed to wash it while it was on the pool, so I washed it as it was. Let it dry overnight, folded it up and -with the help of my beautiful bride- stuffed it on the top shelf in the shed the following evening.
The children rejoiced and went swimming, or more accurately they rejoiced, jumped in the pool and then screamed "It t ts, c c c c ooooo ld d d d."
Ahhh, the sound's of almost summer.
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