Mega rain!

It has been raining all day in this part of Pennsylvania. Some of it has been a gentle 'farmers' rain' but there've been downpours heavy enough to flatten flower stalks and knock blossoms off. Just this past weekend I had so admired my flower gardens. Late this afternoon I could only shake my head at the downed phlox, daisies and bear claw and bemoan the lost blossoms on the snapdragons. I feel especially bad about them because I grew them from seed; there's a lot of emotional investment in flower gardens started from seed.

The pool is overflowing at the skimmer with a steady stream of water, not just a small trickle. Earlier today I had dug a trench away from the skimmer to make sure the overflow won't wash out the sand and that worked well enough—other than creating a mud pit in the yard. Because it's expected to rain through the night I thought it best to drain off some of the water. So I geared up in raincoat and pants and set out to backwash the filter.

Plenty of water! I was able to do three backwash-and-rinse cycles which should have really stirred up the sand. After the last rinse I gave it a good dose of chlorine, then set the multiport to recirculate rather than filter. This will give the sand a chance to settle down. There's not much dirt in the pool right now needing to be filtered out.

I love free water!