Die, algae, die!

So the other day we put in 2 bottles of granulated chlorine (it's some of the strongest chlorine they make) and 2 bottles of algaecide. A few hours after we put them in the pool water turned cloudy blue! That's the color we were hoping for! Woo-hoo!!!!!! Finally! :) Today me and Paul took another water sample to Aqua Quip who confirmed that the algae is gone! On Thursday We take the cartriges out of the filter and put more PowerFloc in to help sink all the teeny tiny particles of dead algae to the bottom so we can vacuum again next Saturday. We also have to put some chemicals in to raise the Ph levels to make the PowerFloc more effective. Now, when I mentioned that the algae particles were teeny tiny, I meant it. The guy at Aqua Quip said they are about 3 microns in diameter. Microns! As in Micro! The filter cartriges will collect anything that is over 20-25 microns in size and the algae is only about 3 microns, so we'll also need to add a "filter aid" to make our filter able to collect such small particles. Then we can start balancing out the water chemistry. All-in-all though, everything is progressing very well. Hopefully by next weekend we'll have clear water! I'm super stoked about that possibility! We're finally really getting close to having a clean pool! I'm not going to post any pics of the water color transformation until the pool is clean, so everyone can get the full effect :)
     In other household news, Hank's parents are here today, visiting from Costa Rica. They are really nice, and they love the house :) Jeremy came over too and is staying the night tonite. I was really hoping Melody would be able to come with Jeremy, but sadly, she is very sick right now. I hope she gets better soon! Until later everyone :)

Letterboxing and relaxing at Riverscene Park

So I wanted to take a drive out to Granite Falls on this gorgeous sunny day, so I did :) I planted a new letterbox (clues will be posted to Atlasquest today or tomorrow) at a tiny, but beautiful little park called Riverscene Park. I stayed there for over an hour just looking at the river and enjoying nature. I also plan to make a little slideshow of the pics I took there :) I finally was able to gather some nice little pieces of driftwood from there too. I've been needing driftwood for my art projects for some time now and I finally found a place where it is apparantly legal to take some! :D Woo-hoo! I felt kinda weird taking driftwood from the little beach, but finally while I was there, some other people also started collecting cool rocks, so I felt a little less out of place :) It's been a really nice day so far! :)

Pool news

Well, today we got up and looked at the pool. It looks a bit better. Not quite the miracle I was praying for, but it does look better. There's tons of clusters of little bubbles on the pool so I asked Aqua Quip what that meant and the guy said that it's "bio foam" which the algae produces as it dies! Yay! :D I like the idea of the algae finally dying! Anywhoo, he said that it should go from whitish green (that's where it is now) to whitish grey, to whitish blue by tomorrow morning. If it doesn't look right by the morning then I'll need to go get some more chemicals. Oh, I hope it looks whitish blue by tomorrow!
At some point I'll post pics of the color transition the pools has made :)

Pool Progress

So Paul called Aqua Quip this morning to find out what we need to do next because the water is still really cloudy. They told us to bring in another water sample and that we'll probably need to get some algaecide, so that what I'm about to do here in a few minutes. I just hope that whatever we put in today will help kill all this darn algae and allow us to finally see the bottom of the pool! I had a dream the other night that I went outside and the pool was totally clean. It was such a nice dream...then I woke up :( Well, hopefully my dream will be coming true soon! I just have to keep reminding myself that it will all be worth it by the time Summer comes around. Also, it looks like we'll be spending another 5-6 hours vacuuming the pool again this Saturday. I just hope it gets all the algae out. Last weekend when we were vacuuming, Hank set the pole that the vacuum is attatched to against the side of the pool for a second (the vacuume head was still on the bottom of the pool) so he could go inside to pee, and the pole started sliding down into the water. I realized what was about to happen and I ran as fast as I could to it, jumped down, and reached down and grabbed it just as the handle slid into the murky water and I pulled it up just before we lost it! It was all "action movie style" as Hank put it. The neighbors were out on their deck and they started clapping when they saw what I did LOL Finally someone was there to witness it when I did something cool! Usually that stuff only happens when I'm by myself LOL I really want to go letterboxing today, but I can't find any new boxes in the area that I'll be going to today. Maybe tomorrow? Well friends, I'll keep you posted on the progress :)

My first post!

So, I don't really know how this blog thing works yet...I'm sure I'll figure it out quick enough, but please bear with me until I get the hang of this :) Let's see... what to write about???? Well, Paul and I have a swimming pool in the backyard of our new house and the people who lived here before us never took care of it so it became dark green and icky. Well, last night we put 4 gallons of liquid chlorine in it and today the water is a lightish yellow instead of dark green! Yay! That made us feel a bit better about it :) The guys at Aqua Quip said it might take up to a week to really see the results we want (we would be happy if it got clear enough to see to the bottom) so we'll see how it turns out.