Living in the sunny and humid state of Florida you will find many homes have swimming pools and tropical landscaping in their back yards.  The downside of our wonderful weather is you will also find a large variety of insects, reptiles, and other strange animals that love the climate as much as we do.

When my husband and I bought our first home it had a HUGE swimming pool in the back yard.  It wasn't screened in like a lot of pools in Florida, so it was a morning ritual to take our coffee outside to see what was in the pool when the sun came up.  Ninety percent of the time what we found in our pool was our fat, yellow Lab, Jacob, swimming in circles with a tennis ball in his mouth and drinking water at the same time.  He would shuffle up the stairs, sit down, and then burp loudly. The rest of the time we mostly found frogs, some swimming and some bloated and stinky.  (The husband was in charge of the dead ones, ew-gross)  We also found a Florida soft shell turtle that was perfectly happy to be there and who threw a total grumpy turtle fit complete with hissing when we tried to dip him out with the net and set him free.  He was so rude I was glad he never came back.

My all time favorite morning pool discovery was ducks.  For about two weeks we had twice daily visits from a very loving duck couple.  When I say "very loving" I mean that literally.  They would fly into our fenced back yard and have a great time in our pool.  Then they were gone.  A few weeks later that Momma duck walked her five baby ducklings all the way to our pool (from God knows where) and they all had a little swim.  This severely annoyed Jacob who immediately jumped into the pool and tried to use the baby ducks as tennis balls.  Alas, Momma duck flew off and I had to rescue her tiny ones with the dip net.  They were never seen again. 

I know I'm not the only one, so I asked my Facebook friends the question, "What's the strangest thing you've encountered in your back yard or pool? Include photos if you have them!"

I received some pretty interesting feedback……and not all from Florida either.  Most people had stories about dogs, cats, and cell phones. 

• Robyn from Fort Myers, Florida found a coral snake in her pool.  They are VERY poisonous.
• Kimberly, also from Fort Myers, Florida found a rattlesnake in hers.  Yikes!
• Mike from Canada said, "My son was swimming and I was about to jump in and he said to me to stay away from the 'ugly bones' ….So I swam down and found a dead bunny."
• Tiffany from Orlando, Florida gave a story of four black snakes that came into her yard together, had a swim together, then left together.  Crazy!  (See picture below)
• Dawn from Fort Myers, Florida also shared a few pictures of her live-in Landscaper, Jenna.  Free Landscaping!  (See picture below)
• Stay tuned for more stories of Adventure!

            Black snakes having a summer swim

                                Jenna doing some free landscaping

                               More landscaping with Jenna

After a long day in your backyard pool with lots of friends and fun you come inside and realize that you have a terrible case of sunburn.  What will make you feel better?  How can you keep from peeling?  Why does this only seem to happen to you when you are the only one who continuously reapplies sun block?

I have no idea.  But I can tell you all the things NOT to do! 

Whoever said that taking a hot shower will take the sting away, was lying! The only thing a hot shower will do for you is burn and make you even hotter when you get out. 

Aloe Vera feels great if you keep it in the fridge, but no matter how much you put on, the second you stop, even a week later, you WILL peel. 

As for applying sunscreen, try waiting before you jump in the water.  Try sitting on the patio or on the pool deck under an umbrella for a change.

Good luck with the sunburn! 

Materials Needed:

• golf tee
• at least 3 players
• a private backyard pool

All players start standing at the edge of the pool, facing AWAY from the water. 

One player has the tee in his/her hand.  They dive into the pool and let the tee go quietly without any other player knowing where. 

Everyone out of the pool waits for the first player to get out of the pool and say “go”

All players turn around and begin scanning the top of the pool looking for the tee.  The first player to see it yells “biddle” and jumps into the water to get it.

Hint for the ‘other’ players who don’t see it first:  As soon as someone yells biddle and jumps in, just jump where they do and splash around.  It will make it really hard for them!

Have fun!

Do you remember when the only care in the world was if you needed to reapply your sun block because your pools water was washing it off?

Do you remember looking out your kitchen window at the breathtaking view of your own backyard with the pool and flawless landscaping? 

Do you remember when all of your friends wanted to come to YOUR house to play in the pool?  And you got to choose the games because of ‘house rules’?

Do you remember all of the pool games you played with your sisters day after day like Marco Polo, sharks, biddle, jump dive twist, sharks and minnows, and categories? 

Do you remember when everyone complained because they had to go to the public pool, but you had your private pool?

I DO! :)  You and your family can too with poolbydesign.com 

In my Charlotte neighborhood there is a community pool. Awesome, right?  I don’t have to open or close it, I don’t have to take care of it, I don’t have to clean it.  The only thing I have to ‘worry’ about is grabbing my cooler and towel walking up the street and parking it on a lounge chair.

Wow.  The middle of April sure was hot.  A dip in the pool would be great, but right.  The pool isn’t open until April 30th. 

What’s that taste?  Ew.  Could there be any more chlorine in this pool?  Great, the people who DO take care of it loaded it up with so much chlorine my hair is already green. 

OH, great.  The guys who clean it must be off today, and those kids left their pretzels all around and in the pool… and they are NOT getting picked up. 

Maybe Pool By Design could create me a private pool in my backyard in time for my summer vacation!

This was the first day I was able to wake up with no alarm clock in 10 months!  I didn’t have to worry about lesson plans, or a room full of 9 year olds! Not saying I don’t love my third graders, but I am so ready to sit by the pool for hours at a time, and soak up the sun with a drink in my hand.

Not a cloud in the sky and surrounded by beautiful people I was able to take in the beauty of summer and mentally plan the fun in the sun to be had for the next 3 months!

What will the next 90 days of summer bring?

According to a report on the Web site UFOdigest.com, the 16,000-gallon swimming pool at the Hotel Maykel in Justiniano Posse, Argentina, was inexplicably drained completely dry in less than a day.

After being notified of the strange occurrence by the pool maintenance man, hotel owner Lilo Garcia was astonished to find that, not only was there no water in the pool itself, there wasn’t any on the surrounding deck as well. Said Garcia: “I don't understand, because when we drain the pool to clean it, such an amount of water takes a day and a half to drain. We flood the patio and the water runs down the street all the way to the canal. But this time there was nothing! Not a single drop of water anywhere around."

The possibility of theft by earthlings is being discounted because it would have taken five water trucks to drain the pool, and no such vehicles were observed. Nor did it appear to be a case of cracked plaster, since the maintenance man conducted a thorough examination and found the shell to be completely intact. Indeed, the pool was subsequently refilled and held water perfectly well.

“So,” asks UFOdigest.com, “who stole the water?” Or as Ripples would put it, was this a genuine Close Encounter of the Wet Kind? And if the extraterrestrials were so thirsty, why wouldn’t they drain a Coke or 7UP factory instead? Or a Starbucks? Or a liquor store? Could it be that on their planet, chlorine is considered a tasty treat?

To keep the plaster that deep dark color there is a couple of tricks.
The water wants to deposit scale on the walls & floor which will cause the pool to get lighter in color.
What is needed is to keep the water slightly acidic.
Most pool maintenance guys treat all pools the same but the dark ones need different treatment.
If you will set it up like this it should stay beautiful.

Settings;
PH.  Ignore this measurement, it will balance itself. ( unless you have a salt system , then you will need to constantly monitor & adjust the PH )

Total Alkalinity       70 to 90 ppm.  (Parts Per Million)

Calcium Hardness    250 to 350 ppm

Keep a course of scale inhibitor present all year. We recommend the Jacks Magic products.

Keep algaecide in the pool during the swimming season.

Chlorine levels between 0.5 to 2 ppm
Shock the pool weekly with 1 lb. of shock per 10,000 gallons once the water temperature gets above about 54 degrees Fahrenheit.
The water temp will effect the chlorine usage.
During the cold months it is very low but increases as the water warms, similar to dissolving sugar in hot or cold tea.

(The H2Only works without any maintenance. It deposits zinc into the water as long as there is trace amounts of chlorine present in the water. This is a proprietary product that is sold by Pool by Design & installed on all our pools unless the customer does not want it)

Regular maintenance;

Backwash filter when the pressure rises about 10 lbs. above normal clean operation pressure.

After backwashing add 5 lbs. of DE powder through the skimmer. Or whatever your particular filter type requires.

(Make sure the Auto cleaners are off until the milky water is cleared out of the pumps lint pot)

Clean the energy filter (auto cleaner filter) if installed, when it looks dirty or the cleaner slows.

Note: If you see a lot of pollen on your car it is also in the pool. Things like this will filter out of the water & quickly block the filter. This may cause more frequent back washing of the pool.

Empty skimmer basket as needed. (Often during the leaf dropping season)

Empty the pump basket as needed.

Tip: The plastic extrusions on the pump lid or energy kit are designed so a lever can be put across them & help open them if they are tight.

Do not use this method to tighten them.

Blogging for me is quite a daunting task. Firstly I cannot type, in my day schools taught girls to type as they were expected to grow up and become secretaries. The were no expectations of men ever needing the skill, typing was a girl course rather like home economics. Why would men ever need to be able to type or cook when there were women around? Next there is the simple fact of what on earth one can write about. If I was still young and knew everything it could be comparatively easy, but as I grow older I discover that most of what I knew is not entirely correct, in fact, most of it was terribly slanted. I find myself now not trying to change the world but trying to change myself to fit into it.

So here is my solution; I am dictating this blog using a talk to text program which I believe is rather a bigot. It seems like American accents but not one combined with a British accent. I have to talk very slowly concentrating on what it writes instead of concentrating on what I am telling it. Hopefully it will learn to listen a little closer but I am sure that during the process of blogging there will be grammatical and spelling errors. Hopefully none of these will become offensive to the readers, if they do I apologize an abundance. (This is a typical mistake made by the program not me and I left it as an example) it should have read “in advance”. They tell me that this thing will learn, I have serious doubts. I hope it does because currently I would be able to type this with one finger faster than dictating it in correcting the errors. I have been through many read paragraphs in an effort to train on a previous laptop, and after all my efforts the laptop was stolen and all the learning was lost. Still, it's rather like my life, what I say to my wife is not what she hears and I can't find her learn key. Time will tell as to how smart this thing really is and I guess how smart you, the readers, are also. Your personal adaptive skills to be able to make sense of what I publish