More Backyard Happenings

Peak pool season has been eventful this year. Thank goodness I didn’t have a big line-up of visitors expecting a pool-themed tropical vacation. That would truly have been a disaster, because my backyard was out of commission for most of May! At peak pool season! And then my pool got knocked out of commission on top of it.

It all started suddenly, early one morning the first week of May, when diesel-belching, earth moving equipment appeared in the alley immediately behind our house. When I went out to investigate, I was told they needed to replace the city gas line.

They cheerfully explained that they would not impact me. But not impacting my gas service did not mean not impacting me. They start work before 7 am, and they leave their machinery to sit and belch diesel fumes all day long even when they aren’t using them. When they are using them, it’s super loud. It’s been impossible to enjoy the backyard.

I naively thought it would take a few days. Four weeks later, I think they are finally done. It was a nightmare.

Meanwhile, we had an insane pollen season this year, due to an overly wet winter. I have never seen so much pollen in my life, and I’ve lived on both the east and the west coasts. How is it that there’s more pollen in Tucson than anywhere I’ve ever lived? (Don’t visit me in May if you have allergies.) Everything got completely coated in sticky yellow-green.

I was trying to keep the excess pollen vacuumed out of my pool, but what I didn’t realize was our filters had become caked with pollen. At one point I emailed John, complaining that something was just wrong, I could not get the pool clean. “This is Sisyphean!” I said.

This is what my pool looked like on May 21. It was green! I’ve never seen anything like this before.

Finally it dawned on me to ask John to clean the filters. Note to us all – if mechanical equipment isn’t working, clean or change its filters!

After he got the filters clean, the water started clearing. At first. But by May 25 it was green again. What’s going on?

We did our best to clean it out, and then went camping for two days. When we got back, our pool looked like this.

Can you believe that color? What should we do? Did we need to drain it and start all over?

Apparently our cleaning efforts were too little, too late. My guess is, we didn’t have enough circulation for too long, due to pollen-clogged filters, causing our problem to escalate into an algae bloom. I’ve never experienced that in the 3 1/2 years we’ve owned this pool.

It was evening by the time we got back from camping, so we just shook our heads and went to bed. The next morning, which was yesterday morning, the pool guy came. John and I take care of all our own cleaning and maintenance, but we hire a company to do the weekly chemical balance for us so we don’t have to store pool chemicals. Our technician took one look at that hot mess, and applied a shock treatment.

Meanwhile, John and I are continuing to run the filter pump on high 24-7, I’m brushing the pool twice a day (sweeping the sides and bottom), and John’s hosing the filters out every evening. Here it is how it looks today, just one day after the shock treatment.

It’s like a miracle. Fingers crossed we’re good now.

Meanwhile, as of yesterday I think they are finally done working in the alley.

And through all of this, the alley construction, the green pool, everything, we’ve had a nesting dove watching over us. She doesn’t seem to ever leave.

Although actually, I looked online and the parents share nesting duties. Often it’s the dad on the nest during the day and the mom at night.

Also, I believe the nesting dove is a white-wing dove, not a mourning dove. They are hard to tell apart because I can’t see its wing in the nest. But I have been seeing this white-winged dove hanging around late in the day, and wonder if it’s the other parent.

It’s a poor photo, but you can still see the white fringe very distinctively.

So, now googling white-winged dove instead of mourning dove, I get, “White-winged doves incubate their eggs for 13–19 days, depending on the temperature and elevation. The female usually lays two white or creamy buff eggs in the nest on consecutive days, and then both parents take turns incubating them, the male during the day and the female at night. To keep the eggs cool, the parents press their bellies against them, absorbing some of the eggs’ heat.“

Way to go daddy bird! He’s got the hottest shift. We were wondering whether they were actually somehow cooling the eggs rather than warming them, because it’s 100 degrees out there!

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