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May. 2nd, 2004 11:58 pmIt was a transitional day. First, I woke up to say goodbye to Frans, our guest from Amsterdam, who was leaving early to do a wine tasting in the Santa Cruz mountains, after which he'll take up residence at the local Corporate Inn for the next few weeks of fun at Sun. For those of you who haven't been there, I am useless for an hour until I pump some coffee into me, and someday I wil be too bleary to make the coffee, and it will the The End. So Frans must think I couldn't care less that he was leaving -- no doubt I mumbled.
The work for the day was clearing brush and trimming bushes in the side yard. I put on my skimpy shorts and made it a tanning event, sunscreening up my face and shoulders first. Lots of butch chopping with clippers and scything of brush. There's a lot of mint over there, so I did smell like peppermint afterwards.
Then Mike helped me move the solar pool cover out from there to the pool for its annual cleanup. Dead leaves and crap everywhere, after hiding back there it was an apartment house of spiders and rotting vegetation. Much high-pressure hosing later, it was clean enough to pull across the pool for a trim.
I decided it would be much easier to use if it was cut down to cover a bit less of the pool's surface. This solar cover stuff is basically glorified bubble wrap that floats on the water's surface, mylar with aluminized backing. It puts a few R between the water and the sky, keeping heat losses from evaporation and radiation down and allowing the sun's heat to build up under it. I cut two feet off both sides and eight feet off the end, where it had started to rot from exposure. The newly-trim cover leaves some water exposed but weighs about half of what it did, so it's much easier to wrangle. So next time we need to use the pool, a night or two under the cover will get the water up to the 80s where I like it.
More yard work and a shower later, we relaxed to watch Prime Suspect 6 (and presumably the last) with Helen Mirren, recorded last week. It was great.
The work for the day was clearing brush and trimming bushes in the side yard. I put on my skimpy shorts and made it a tanning event, sunscreening up my face and shoulders first. Lots of butch chopping with clippers and scything of brush. There's a lot of mint over there, so I did smell like peppermint afterwards.
Then Mike helped me move the solar pool cover out from there to the pool for its annual cleanup. Dead leaves and crap everywhere, after hiding back there it was an apartment house of spiders and rotting vegetation. Much high-pressure hosing later, it was clean enough to pull across the pool for a trim.
I decided it would be much easier to use if it was cut down to cover a bit less of the pool's surface. This solar cover stuff is basically glorified bubble wrap that floats on the water's surface, mylar with aluminized backing. It puts a few R between the water and the sky, keeping heat losses from evaporation and radiation down and allowing the sun's heat to build up under it. I cut two feet off both sides and eight feet off the end, where it had started to rot from exposure. The newly-trim cover leaves some water exposed but weighs about half of what it did, so it's much easier to wrangle. So next time we need to use the pool, a night or two under the cover will get the water up to the 80s where I like it.
More yard work and a shower later, we relaxed to watch Prime Suspect 6 (and presumably the last) with Helen Mirren, recorded last week. It was great.
