Summer's End

I am declaring that Summer is officially over as of today. We took the pool down and it's put away until about May of next year. It took us all day to get it put up and filled, but it only takes a couple of hours to get it drained and boxed. Otter had planned on swimming yesterday, but it never really got warm enough and then we had a thunderstorm. So instead, she got in the pool when we were going to drain it and took the toys out. Then she got herself arranged on her inner tube and we pushed the sides down so she could ride over the side and a few feet over the grass. She was able to get back in and ride two more times before the water got too low. But she did enjoy it. She thought that the water would have been warm enough to swim today, but it really wasn't. There is a nice big square area in the center of my yard that now looks like the world's biggest mud pie. Needless to say, the dogs are now prohibited from the rest of the yard! Frasier has an affinity for mud. The grass will still have enough time to cover the pool area by the end of the season, or at least it will have time to give it a good try. We could see where moles had been tunneling and had apparently been planning on coming up to the surface in a couple of spots, but they were stopped by the pool. There were also quite a few earthworms we spotted in the dirt.

We really got a lot of enjoyment out of the pool this summer. We finally figured out how to keep the water clear and not get algae: quit trying. We just filled up the Duckinator with chlorine tabs and kept it filled, and that was enough. We've usually used testing kits and chemicals but they never really worked and we had more problems with green water when we were using the kits. So this year, we didn't get a new kit (because we never got around to it) and just used the Duckinator. And it was absolutely fine. The Duckinator is a container that holds the chlorine tabs, it has a topper that is a rubber duck wearing sunglasses. It's cute. I've also seen them with turtles and penguins, but we like our ducky.

Incidentally, we refer to the pool as "the pool that eBay bought" because it was the first big item we bought after we started selling on eBay. We figured out that we've had it 7 years. I think we've gotten our money's worth out of it by now!

Otter got a driving lesson this afternoon. Bill took her out for about 30 minutes. When I asked her how it went, she told me all about hopping the curb on a turn. She'll learn! I am going to call the driving school tomorrow and get her scheduled for the rest of her lessons, but we still have to give her lessons because she has to have so many hours behind the wheel to get the actual license. I'll probably take her out a couple of times this week, depending on the weather. Some of the hours she needs have to be at night, but those won't be until she's gotten some practice in.

While she was out being Speed Racer, I got finished with my sewing shelf. I at least got all my misc. stuff into two plastic crates and up on the shelf. I can probably get it a little better organized, but I was tired of it and just wanted it done. Later on, I'll worry about reorganizing it. For now, it's fine. And now, it's back to my laundry!