Well we opened the pool yesterday. It'll take about a week until the water is clear and correct and everything is running right. But that's not a problem because the water is still quite cold. Last year, I bought the Hobbitt a wet suit so that she could start to use the pool earlier, and that worked out well.

The interesting thing is that when we bought the house, we hadn't seen the pool. It was February and the pool was hidden under its winter cover. In the early summer, we hesitated opening the pool because we were about to be invaded by the seventeen year cicadas and there were dire predictions that they would fill up the pool, jam the filters, and generally wreak havoc.

In the end, not a single cicada showed up. I did see some in the parking lots of the malls in Fairfax. (If you had just spent 17 years underground, wouldn't you head for the mall?)

The picture above shows what the pool looks like after everything has been set right. Sure looks inviting.

Everybody into the pool!