We have an above ground pool. It's not something we would ever purchase on its own, but since it came with the house, we decided we might as well use it. Our first year here, we learned a lot about pool maintenance...good stuff, like, one shouldn't remove the pool cover in the spring and then neglect the pool for 3 weeks unless one just really wants bright flourescent green water until mid-summer, and.. one should stand UPwind when adding granulated chlorine. We figure now, after 3 summers, we are pretty much old pros.
This year has been unusually cool and rainy, and we've been waiting for warmer weather before opening the pool and thus, creating even more work for ourselves. About two weeks before we opened the pool, we started to be awakened in the middle of the night by a gawd-awful racket coming from our backyard, seemingly right underneath our bedroom window. The husband wisely pronounced it to be a frog that had taken up residence under our back deck.
Now, don't get me wrong. I like frogs. But, this was beyond annoying. Several times, while standing on the deck in back of the house, we were startled by a shrill whining/whistling sound - loud enough to make conversation impossible without yelling. We explored under the deck more than once, trying to find the culprit, which I imagined to be a HUGE frog, judging from the volume. It became apparent that ours was no ordinary frog - and I became convinced he was not only huge, but also invisible....either that or just very, very sneaky. So, being unsuccessful at frog hunting, we resigned ourselves to the ghastly nightly serenades and the rude daylight conversation stoppers.
Last weekend was a nice weekend, and the husband decided to begin the annual pool opening ritual, which includes dropping a pump down on top of the heavy pool cover to suck up any accumulated rain water that hasn't evaporated. This keeps the yucky, gunky rain water from being dumped into the pool when the cover is removed. Soon, we heard the frog. It sounded like it was coming from the pool cover and we watched expectantly as the pump drained the water off the cover. But, alas, even after all the water was pumped off there was nary a varmint in sight. So, off came the cover. To reveal the murky water underneath waiting to be vacuumed and "shocked" and stabilized...as well as the FOUR frogs happily swimming around inside.
I can't even begin to say how they got in. And, once there, how they didn't drown. The husband says he witnessed one little guy literally leap from the surface of the water, fly 2 feet through the air and land on the side of the deck surrounding the pool. I have no reason to doubt him. But, with the cover in place, I can't even fathom how they managed.
None of the little guys were larger than 3 inches, even when stretched out in a full froggy breast stroke. But, evidently when one spoke, they ALL did. All at the same time. All at the top of their little froggy voices. WHAT a racket four wee frogs can make!
The husband commenced to flinging frogs out of the pool with the long handled leaf skimmer. He quickly discovered that the little buggers didn't WANT to be flung, though, and would hop off the skimmer back into the water just as soon as they were lifted into the air. The husband became quite adept, and finally perfected the froggy-fling technique, which, for the benefit of all, I will share here.
The perfect Froggy-Fling begins with a slow motion approach of the leaf skimmer behind the unsuspecting swimming critter, followed by a slow and steady sinking of the skimmer beneath said froggy. Next, the skimmer is raised slowly (so as not to distrurb the water below said froggy) until just before froggy contact, when with a smooth, fast upward swing, reminiscint of a powerful golf-swing follow-through, froggy is lifted (quite by surprise) and carried overhead in a graceful arc until - finally - airborn it leaves the skimmer and completes the arc on its own, landing in soft grass below the pool. Beauty in motion, really.
After removing all the frogs, the husband next bent to remove the filter bucket to rinse it off. Ooops. Missed one. It leaped out of the bucket and, well...the husband swears he wasn't the one who yelped. After giving the husband a lovely adrenalin rush (which I can't help but think was the intention) the frog calmly hopped off the side of the pool into the grass below - off to join his little froggy friends, no doubt.
Our nights have been wonderfully quiet this week. And conversations on the back deck are once again conducted without resorting to bullhorns. Best of all, I'm no longer haunted by the idea of a giant, invisible, sneaky frog living under my deck.
Disclaimer: No frogs, or other critters, were harmed during the course of the froggy-fling. Surprised, maybe. But, not harmed.
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