How to Heat a Pool

Not content with merely having a pool, almost as soon as it was obvious that it was going to fill up with water, the pool boy set about inventing a solar heater for it. He has wanted to play with passive solar for a while, but I won't let him do crazy things like this inside the house with the hot water heater. I know, I know, I'm such a kill joy.
His theory has always been, that a black hose filled with water will heat up in the sun, and if you could use a circulator pump to take cool water out of the pool and put the warm hose water into the pool, it would help heat up the pool. His first version was 200 feet of 1/2 inch poly pipe coiled onto a piece of plywood pointing at the sun. When the circulator pump was turned on, it added warm water to the pool for about 90 seconds and then the water coming out of the hose was pool temperature again. The pump pumped too fast. So about every 1/2 hour, you could add a few gallons of warm water for a few seconds. Promising but not perfect.
Then he remembered that we had lots of copper and aluminum finned base board radiators kicking around from when we renovated the house and replaced the baseboard with in-floor radiant. So he soldered them all together, spray painted them black and mounted them on another piece of plywood. The extra pipe added more water to the heating loop which adds extra heat. The aluminum fins collect more solar and transfer it to the copper pipe, and the copper pipe heats up more than the poly pipe. A lot more. The water coming out of the return hose is too hot to hold your hand under, and the water is warm for a lot longer, about ten minutes in fact. The cool water from the pool continues to steal heat from the hot copper pipe until it is the same temperature as the water, so it is not just the extra volume of pipe that adds heated water, but several minutes of heat transfer after the initial water has gone through the loop.
The next design stage saw the two pieces of plywood attached together and mounted on a pivoting bolt so the solar collector can be swivelled to always face the sun. It all works really well on sunny days. We have had the pool water up to 26 degrees Celsius on sunny warm days. On overcast days though the temperature is only 22 degrees Celsius, which is what is would probably be without a solar heater. On breezy days the aluminum fins actually act as a cooling device, and the wind will steal heat away from the pipe as the water goes through.
He has talked about enclosing the whole system under a clear sheet of plastic or glass to protect it from wind. I don't dare suggest that the pump operation could be put on a timer or that the swivel bolt be hooked up to a motorized cart. Perhaps that will be next year's pool adventure.
I'm told that some people use their pools to swim in.

How to Steal A Pool

Long before dumpster diving was fashionable, and consignment stores were chic, foraging was a way of life in Nova Scotia. We are an economically depressed people, and for generations we have traditionally relied on re-cycling and used items, DIY projects, and the barter system to get stuff which otherwise would be beyond our reach.
When big garbage day rolls around, you can pick up some pretty cool stuff, and it's not like stealing because those people were just going to throw it out anyway. In fact people deliberately put out stuff early to give other people a chance to pick through it. This spring we put out a broken gas whipper snipper and it didn't last a day before someone came along and decided they could use it or fix it or whatever and took it away. As long as it is obvious that the item is no longer wanted by the previous owner, it is fair game. This is how we came to steal a pool.
It was just sitting there.
No one was using it.
Honest.
Last Monday we decided to go get it. It is one of those easy set up** above ground vinyl ones from Cambodian Tire. It was mostly empty as it had been sitting there on the ground in the neighbour's yard since last summer. It sat there all winter too, empty and forlorn. The neighbour's moved out last February and no one lives in the house. The house, in real estate terms is a century old fixer upper with character (read filthy condemned dump.) The lot is now being used as a place to store materials for the water main construction coming through to Kingsport. Dump trucks and loaders trundle by endlessly. You can understand why we removed the pool from the overgrown back yard. It was a rescue mission.
It had about 4 inches of water in it from the rain storms the previous week so we knew it held water. With much effort, and without waiting to don some more appropriate clothing, we hauled on the sides grunting and slipping on the algae until it emptied, getting soaked and extremely dirty in the process. It's pretty big, so I squished home to get the pickup while the other one searched for the rest of the bits in the long grass. It was at this point that it occurred to me that this was the sort of story my parents used to tell about their pre-children days.
We hauled it into the truck, along with the plastic ground sheet beneath it. The ground sheet looked and smelled like it used to cover a pile of manure, so now we were really dirty. Once at home, we hosed down the plastic sheet (and ourselves) and set about seeing if the the slimy bits would come off the pool. They did.
I must tell you that I have never really wanted a pool. Last year when our friends Andrew and Christine got a pool the other one asked me if I wanted one, and my rely was "No, I want friends with a pool, the same way I want friends with a cottage by the ocean and friends with a sail boat, and friends with and apartment in Manhattan and a town house in London. That way you get the benefits without the hassles."
One Tuesday we set it in place and started filling it up to clean it. That was when I remembered what I thought about pools and hassles.
On Wednesday we filled it.
On Thursday we were still filling it and starting to wonder about the water volume in our well.
It was looking good so we decided to buy a filter pump at The Tire. That's when the math stopped making sense. A new pool just like ours cost $299 and includes a pump, and a ladder. After paying for a new pump and ladder (which we couldn't find in the neighbour's yard) and buying the necessary filters and chemicals, we ended up forking out about $200. So much for the free pool.
On Friday we were still cautiously filling it and we started to filter the water and scrub the pool. The pool boy invented a DIY pool vacuum from a Central VAC unit he scavenged from Big Garbage last fall. Here he is demonstrating the invention.
On Saturday we filtered and scrubbed.
On Sunday we filtered and scrubbed.
On Monday we filtered and scrubbed.
Today the water is clear and the pool is clean, and it was 15 degrees and rain so we had no inclination to go for a dip.

We didn't want Willow to feel left out, so we set her up a pool too.

** Easy, yeah right.

Please Don't Eat the Daisies

So last Tuesday while I was running around putting out fires (literally) I was meant to be planting a garden. Last year I had the great idea that it would be fun to plant a carpet bed at the Welcome to Wolfville signs. It turned out that my immediate boss liked the idea, and even had a design of the iconic Cape Blomidon already to use for a project from a few years back. So last fall we went on a workshop about making carpet bedding that I blogged about and we figured out what plants to use and how many we needed and we enquired at out local nursery if they could grow them.
This spring, when we were getting ready to buy some plants for the town signs I wondered why we weren't doing the carpet bedding design. My boss said that his boss had nixed the idea as too expensive for the maintenance so we just did the usual thing and bought a lot of annual flowers to make the signs look nice. Then last week our nursery called and asked when we were planning to pick up the plants we ordered. Oops. Apparently they considered our inquiry about whether they could grow them as an order. As we had already planted the signs, and part of the plant material was to be supplied by colleagues at the Halifax Public Gardens, we couldn't actually use them for their original intended purpose, but we did have to use them.
On Wednesday we found a spot in town and had a go at a spur of the moment design. I drew upon my years of watching my mother draw out lines to make patterns on the borders of her quilts. I think when it fills in, you will be able to see the double helix better, but I took a photo now because it may get vandalized before it fills in. There are some gaps that, had we planned this, would be planted, but as we really didn't want them anyway, we didn't want to spend any more money on this snafu. Plus they were a special order (sort of) from the nursery, so there were no more to be had in any case. If you look at it from the long side, it looks like 5 cats eyes staring back at you.

Only YOU Can Prevent Fires

Life is what happens when you aren't blogging. OK. Quicky post on how I became a volunteer firefighter.
Ummm, no not really. But I know some volunteer firefighters, does that count?
Last Tuesday it was hot and dry here and windy too. Even though the week before it was torrential rain, the mulch at the new town centre garden was completely dry. This spring the irrigation drip line was heaved up and visible so we put a lot more bark mulch on top trying to hide it, but this means that when it is hot and dry, even though the soil beneath is wet from the irrigation, the mulch stays dry. The town centre square is right next to a bus stop, where people smoke cigarettes until the last possible moment before they board the bus. Are you getting the picture yet? Last Tuesday we got called twice about the garden being on fire. The first time we just used a small bucket of water to put out the smoldering bits and had a laugh with the commissionaire who managed the parking at the centre.
The second time we came equipped with an actual fire hose and hooked up to the fire hydrant and hosed it down for an hour. Do I have a great job or what? How many people other than firefighters can say that they regularly open a fire hydrant for work? Anyhoo, I always think an episode like this is just another piece of street theatre. I treat such public displays like I'm on stage, because you know people are watching. People on the street at open air cafes, at the bus stop, getting in and out of their cars in the parking lot are the audience. I make a production everything from getting out the hose and finding the pipe wrench to carefully avoiding spraying people waiting for the bus and rolling the hose up and putting it all away. Just my little performance to educate the public on the hazards of smoking and not properly butting out their cancer sticks. Do you think they get it? Nope, we had another fire Wednesday night, which the actual Volunteer Fire Brigade had to answer. There were flames. Smokey the Gardener says, "Only You can Prevent Garden Fires."

Pictures for my Adoring Fans

Might I just point out that if I'm too busy to blog, I'm probably too busy to take pictures of what I am doing and post them on the internet?
None the less, here are the requested photos of Garden Stakes and KFROGS mugs. The garden stakes are 1" wide and about 12" long and I didn't sell a single one on Sunday, go figure. I guess the crowd that runs charity marathons doesn't garden.
This is a photo of the KFROGS mugs before the glaze kiln. The shape is inspired by a Hannah McAndrew mug that I recently acquired (Although her's are much nicer.) They are about 4" tall and 3" wide at the top. This is after the glaze, which was disappointing. Some were clearer that others but none remained as crisp as they look in the first picture. Still, we sold 8 and I donated 4 to their Chinese Auction as well as half the proceeds of those sold so KFROGS got at least an extra $60 for my efforts.
I did also sell 5 bowls and a coil pitcher, which somewhere I might have pictures of, but you will have to wait for those because life still appears to be as busy as ever. Stay tuned, because next time I'll tell you about how I became a volunteer firefighter, an accidental garden designer and I will also tell you why stealing a 15 foot swimming pool out of your neighbour's backyard is probably not a good idea.

Madly Dogpaddling to Stay Afloat

No, I'm not dead. Just busy, busy, busy.
Almost there. My first craft show outing as part of the KFROGS Day for Global Change is this Sunday June 13th from 9-6 at the Look Off. I threw mugs specific to this fundraising event. They were bisque fired today while I went to work; thanks to my personal kiln technician AKA The Sweetie. They will be glazed tomorrow and fired Friday (we hope.)
I don't have as much stuff as I would like to take. Much of what I hoped would be great from the last glaze kiln turned out crappy instead. The main two ideas for this show, the plant stakes and the mugs seem OK.
The weather forecast waffles between Sun and Rain for Sunday. I'm not made of sugar (or that other substance that starts with an Ess) and rain won't hurt my pots, but I did buy a beach umbrella today which I figure will be useful for both possibilities.
Meanwhile, the garden is growing without me, but all the seedlings in my greenhouse which should have been planted weeks ago, are being eaten by squirrels. I have no basil or tomatoes left. They even ate the marigolds and cannas if you can believe it. The fruit trees are doing well, except the peach that always gets peach leaf curl, but I managed to spray it with seaweed extract between rain storms this week so we will see how that works. We have a plan to plant grape vines and kiwis this year, but that will wait for a few weeks yet, because after this craft fair is over I'm going to get my motorcycle out of storage and go for a ride.