18 May 2021
I moved into my house in 1995 with the help of a good friend who wrote my mortgage and the GI Bill. I actually looked at the house once before but decided I didn’t want a house with a pool. After a dearth of other available inventory, I ended up where I am now. Ironically, the pool is where I spend most of my time.
At the time I didn’t know anything about taking care of a pool but I figured I had enough chemistry background I could at least get the chemicals right. Trust me when I say it’s not that easy but after 27 years here, I finally have gotten the chemicals pretty much down pat. Regardless, every once in a while, the pool goes haywire and I spend the next two weeks figuring out what the deal is with the pool.
What I did not anticipate was the variety of things that I find in the pool every morning. I’ve gotten into the habit of looking out the window to see what is in the pool. Often it is simply a palm frond that blew into the water. I get that out as soon as I can because sometimes the hose to the Great White Shark (pool cleaner) gets tangled in it. You can actually tell the seasons down here by what leaves are in the pool.
Every time I do my laps, I usually spend some preliminary time gathering leaves of the surface and the bottom of the pool before I start my laps. The reason is it is disconcerting to be mid lap and have leaves brush up against you thinking they are pool monsters.
Then there are the real monsters. Yesterday, I looked out and noticed something on the bottom of the shallow end and thought it was just a piece of palm frond. I ignored it and thought it would be simple enough to remove when I got ready to swim. After my walk, my second cup of coffee and my yoga stretches, I was ready to hit the pool. I noticed the object was now floating upright in the pool as opposed to on the bottom as before. As I started to reach down to pull it out, it moved. It was a legless lizard. I used the net to pull it out and dump it on the outside of the fence hoping it would find a burrow to go back into. I found one in the pool before but never floating vertically like that. It’s not a good scene for the lizard because I’m sure the chlorine in the pool would have eventually been toxic.
My pool seems to be a microclimate for botanical and zoological study. I had an algae that got started that was pink. It was a little embarrassing to take the great white into the pool store with pink all over it.
Other forms of wildlife that are frequent visitors are migrating land crabs. At one time they were so common along Riverland Road next to my house that hundreds were crushed by the traffic along the road. Every year, the land crab migrates from a burrow in the ground to a water source to lay their eggs. Most of the time, they find the canals around my area but I usually get three or four a year in the pool. If I don’t find them soon enough, they expire due to the chlorine.
I’ve found mole crickets, termites, large frogs and baby frogs and salamander eggs. Just so you know, frogs lay eggs in masses but salamanders lay eggs in strings.
Mole crickets are pretty common. They are an interesting species. The males burrow into the ground and then use the “tunnel” as an amplifier for their calls to females. It’s like they use a megaphone. I find them swimming around at certain times of the year – probably accidentally falling into the pool.
After every swim, I swim over to the hose attachment and pull any leaves out of there. I’ve reached in blindly too many times and have pulled out a large frog and a ring-necked snake. That’ll get your attention. I tend to look before I grab these days.
Ring-necks down here are very small – around 6-8 inches long. I try to get to them before they are pulled into the filtration system but I have often found their carcasses in the pool filter.
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The saddest thing are the bees that drown in the pool. I image they are trying to skim the surface for water but get caught by a wind wave and get waterlogged and cant fly out. The same goes for beetles. They at least swim to the hose and climb on for the ride of their life when the pool pump comes on. The hose constantly vibrates when the pump is on. Spiders love to skim along the surface of the pool and I’ve removed a good many of them but more of their exoskeletons that shed into the pool. Dragonflies constantly skim the surface and on occasion, I pull one or two dead ones out.
About the only thing I haven’t found in the pool are birds, rats, or O’possums. I did go through a period of time that a raccoon would wash its food on the pool steps and after washing her food she would live a pile of poop on the step – under water. Good thing I chlorinate the pool. I used to watch a live podcast of this guy back before there were podcasts and he complained about raccoons pooping in his pool. We commiserated over having to clean that out every morning. A couple of times I heard something outside and flipped the outside lights on and saw the raccoon on the pool steps. She paid me no mind whatsoever.
The good news is I have never had an alligator in the pool – although that is fairly common in Florida. Just to be sure, I look before I leap into the pool.
And then, there are the members of the lizard family. I have the curly tail lizard, the brown basilisk and the green iguana in the brown and green phase as well as breeding phase. In addition, the brown anole and scaly tailed lizard are frequent guests.
The brown basilisk is the one that can run fast enough on two legs it looks as though it can “walk” on water. I’ve seen one run across the pool surface. The curly tail lizard is a newer phenomenon in my neighborhood but have apparently been in south Florida for a while. I started noticing them about 10 years ago. I’ve even had the scaly tailed lizard which is an omnivore and will eat other lizards.
They all hang out around the pool deck, in my gutters, in the palm trees and any place else that can find. Those in the palm trees that overhang the pool simply deposit their poop in the pool and they allow me to fish it out with the net. If anyone is in need of iguana guano, I’m your man!
My pool never ceases to entertain me.
