The Suthun Man's Swimming Pool

Here in the south people make do with whatever is handy. If something can be made to do 'double duty' then it's fair game to the owner as to what it can be used for. In this case, a large trash dumpster is remade into a small swimming pool for a couple of suthun kids.

Take special note that this guy went to the expense and time of putting in a pump and filter to keep the water clean. It's even got a tarp to keep out debris and a nice set up of redwood steps for entering the "pool". The fresh freckled faces of the kids seem to say that this 'swimmin hole' is the best.

Which means that it's a darned sight better than this guy did:



For people like this, I think a "No Diving" sign would be not only appropriate, but necessary.

We went the whole route of the above ground pool. Imagine a giant metal cylinder about 24 feet across and 4.5 feet deep. It's lined with a big vinyl liner and the liner looks like tile. (That's to fool everyone and make them think you actually TILED your above ground pool...) The big problem with our pool is that it is surrounded by trees. That means that during the winter the cover gets filled with leaves and water...a terrible combination...which ends up smelling like the hippo enclosure at the zoo which hasn't been cleaned in...ever... Yech.

This last year our cover broke, so all that muck ended up IN the pool. Now, add to that the fact that the pool sprung a leak and I was looking at about 6 inches of water full of muck and green slime in the bottom of my pool this spring.

So, for the last 4 weekends, I've battled against the green algae by running the pump ($$$) and using the chemicals (on credit: $$$) to where it now resembles an above ground POND, light green in color but with a mild chlorine smell almost masking the hippo enclosure stench. It's not bad, really, just not usable. I keep working even after work, and the real problem only comes in a) it's still not usable and b) I keep dropping things into the murky depths and have to go wadding in order to retrieve them.

I've finally got the pool to the point where I can see murky fuzzy blotches of color differences on the bottom and this is a good thing. It gives me hope. Now, if I can only stop dropping things, I'll do fine.