Sunday, August 24, 2008

the Man with the Yurt and his Ladder-day Problems

The Pool Guy, as he likes to call himself, had a great idea to make a Yurt to surround his above ground pool. He gets all the lumber, stains it, drills hundreds of holes in prep for assembly. He gets the wife to sew a lonnnngggg piece of cloth to surround the yurt. He uses wires, plastic ties, nuts & bolts, beams of wood for the roof, slats of wood that criss-cross together, and clear plastic to form the roof with a plastic dome for the center top. He could tell you all the details in the assembly but let's just say "voila" - a yurt. The first thing is that a very strong wind (65mph) blows over the yurt and breaks the the yurt. The dome became a flying saucer and a neighber brought it back home all broken. Back to the drawing board. The destruction put a leak in the pool, so that would need to be replaced.

The next step after getting another pool, is to do something different to secure the yurt against the strong winds. Several tie-downs suffice. Next is to get a different roof. A harder plexiglass is ordered and used for the roof and the dome. A partial panel needs to be replaced in the fabric that surrounds the yurt. After several days and many harrowing experiences (he was hanging upside down on the outside of the roof) the yurt was complete.

Then came another idea for getting water level right in the pool. A toilet tank apparatice is used and metal clamps, and copper tubing. Well the chorine in the water eroded the copper tubing and we had a high copper content in the water. Many chemicals and filters later and now the water is clean again.

But the old ladder was now rusty. Since we had a new pool we had a new ladder that we had not used yet. So Pool Guy assembles the new ladder and moves all the toilet gadgets to the new ladder, with out using copper this time, and very little metal. BUT, the new ladder has fewer rungs and is more wobbly than the old ladder. So with a little trial and error, and nearly falling off the ladder, it was decided to paint the old ladder and get rid of all the rust, reassemble the steps to the old ladder and use the old faithful again. New is not always better. But Pool Guy has an idea to build his own ladder. Wheels are in motion. By next summer I expect there will be a new ladder in place that suits all concerned.

The question is: What else will need to be done to pool, ladder, or yurt? Seems every season it is something different. But it does not discourage him. Pool Guy keeps plugging away. I am glad he rises to the occasion.

Friday, August 22, 2008

just wait...

So here I am feeling pretty proud of myself because I have figured out another computer thing. It is a big accomplishment because nobody was here to help me. I just started pushing buttons and voila'. So now I may put some random thoughts, advice, recipes, who knows what on this thing. I know... you are thinking "welcome to the 21st century".

That's it. Just wanted to let you all know. Have a nice day. MOM