Force of nature

Due to an unfortunate act of nature yesterday, we had to make a decision about our pool.  Long story short, the pool is now moving with us.

The long story...

Yesterday, was a rainy day.  Unfortunate because I had just filled the pool (accidentally) to the brim the day before for the first time since we originally filled it for the summer.  (If you know anything about the price of water usage in Montgomery, it's a painful choice to put the hose in the pool.)  The night before, I just dumped in more chlorine to shock the pool because it rained on the weekend also & that tends to also effect the chemicals.  I had also spent most of that afternoon babysitting the pool vacuum to get the bottom clean.  So, the pool was clean, full and ready for a warm day to swim again.  Mother Nature had another plan.

Bring on heavy winds, strong enough to toss the large garbage bins over and push over our neighbors double swinging rocker.  It blew pool floaties off the deck and when the rain and lightening let up enough for me to go round them up, I headed out to the soggy yard.  I happened to glance over at the pool and was shocked to see the waterline about a foot below the rim (remember I had it filled to the top?).  I then noticed that the strips holding the liner on around the top had somehow come off and the liner had collapsed into the pool, causing water to flow over the back of the liner and out the sandy bottom of the pool.  I ran to that side only to be shocked at the water gushing out the bottom and holes at the seams of the side of the pool.  The neighbors yard was flooded (for the 2nd time by us this year...oops!) and I panicked at what to do.

I ran inside to yell for AJ to help and had to ask Ian to watch over Bella (who was ready for a nap.)  When he got out, we tried to pull up the liner in the 2 areas that were falling, but the weight of the water pulled it down and we had no option but to hold the liner above the water line until the water that went over the backside drained out.  Totally beside myself, I told AJ to give the 911 call to Jason, who was at work training in the new AD.  All we could do was hold up the liner to keep more water from flowing out the side until Jason arrived.  In the meantime, one of AJ's friends came walking down the street and luckily for him, he was wearing sandals, so I used him as another helper to stand in the soggy mess and hold up the liner while I attempted to get the hoses hooked up to drain the pool into the street and not the yard.

Jason arrived to see all of his recent hard work spilling out & we had to decide whether we would go through all the work and money to get it back up and running, only to enjoy it for a few more weeks.  Once we got things under control (as much as we could), I called the realtor and we figured that the pool neither helped nor hindered the sale of our house, so we decided that we would just take the pool out and leave a really large sandy fire pit (at least that's how we're going to market it!)

Needless to say, our workload just increased by a lot, not to mention the sports schedules and packing with a toddler, but Jason is thrilled to have the option of the pool at our new home.  I, on the other hand, am reminded at how heavy those panels are and am wondering how in the world we are going to load those things without a forklift!

So if anyone in our area needs some sand...there are 9 tons under it, and I am guessing that a fire pit doesn't need that much.