More and More Challenges

Remember when I mentioned the pool guy (a.k.a. "The Cable Guy" in this little rant)? Well, Derek finally did show up, but without calling first. He officially opened the pool while only my son, Peter, was present.

Peter is possibly the biggest-hearted person on the planet, the most well meaning and well-intentioned. He has memorized such useless things as Π to eleven digits. However, he routinely forgets to relay messages that may or may not be of a trivial nature.

So, ever since Derek's visit, I've been struggling to keep the pool from reverting to this.

The water is NOT supposed to be that green.

It has been an incessant struggle. I kept having to "shock" the pool with doses of chlorine powder.

On Saturday, I took a water sample in to the pool company. They informed me that there was zero chlorine in the water, which was a surprise since I had "shocked" it on Monday. They suggested I check the chlorinator settings.

So I did. This is what I saw.

On the left is the actual chlorinator.
The "mystery wire" was actually in a ziploc baggy.
The "mystery box" is the monitor
to which the mystery wire should have been connected.

The note, which we never saw, reads, "Leave OFF until Wednesday."
That would be Wednesday, June 15th, I think.
The yellow dot highlights the Off-Auto-Superchlorinate switch, set to "Off."

Which is when I discovered that the chlorinator had never been plugged in because its wire was still in the ziploc baggy, nor had it been turned on! We essentially had a saline pond in our back yard. Ick.

I sincerely hope that once we get it stabilized this time, it'll stay clean and clear for several weeks, rather than several days!

Meanwhile, I have tackled the rampant grass/weed problem, but have discovered other ravages of Mother Nature.

:-(
I hope it's just dehydrated, but it may have a fungus.

APHIDS on my dogwood.

This whole "creating an oasis" thing is not as straightforward as one might imagine. But, lest you think nothing is going according to plan, I leave you with this picture of the mother-of-thyme happily nestled between the rocks.

Just as planned.