Last year we bought one of those above ground swimming pools and after setting up in mid July were only able to enjoy a dozen or less good swim days.

This year the weather has been so crappy to date and with June almost over there was some consideration that we may never set the pool up in 2008. I mean, why set something up for only 10 good hot days? A hot day on Wednesday and rumor of 90 degree weekend days coming this weekend quickly changed my mind. Time to switch into pool assembly mode.

Leveling the pool in our backyard proved to be challenging last year. This year I dug a bigger trench than last year and used the dirt from that to bulk up the lower side. You can see the trench in the picture above which was big enough to put the pump in. What happened this year is the pool ended up dipped on both ends and higher in the middle. At least we don’t have the sloping we had last year, but man, why is leveling earth so difficult a concept for me?

What’s buried in your backyard?
A side bonus from the excavation was finding a 1948 shilling. My son went to the internet to research the coin.

Tools for leveling land?
There must be some sort of tool for excavators to be able to easily level land, yes/no? I remember when being in the restaurant business and seeing some laser red light used by contractors to show a level line across an area. I wonder if there is something like that contractors use to get the ground level?

Anywhere, here is how it looks from the side. You can see it’s not a great leveling job:

Guessing I won’t get any pool setup jobs any time soon, but the process did go much faster this year than last. We were able to setup the pool in less than three hours, including digging the small trench. Filling the pool took about 8 hours and cost us $25 extra on our water bill last year.

Our three sons took a dip yesterday when it wasn’t even 70 degrees outside. The pool water in the morning was at 50 degrees but had warmed up to 56 degrees by the time they climbed in. I told them they were nuts. How they managed to last in that frigid water for 30 minutes is beyond me, but they splashed around and had a good time. My son’s girlfriend was the only smart one of the bunch, like us parents, she stayed out.

The final picture at 6:59am PST.

The skies are blue, it’s gonna be a scorcher. Glad that the work is done. Now all we have to do once the heat sets in is get in and enjoy.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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