Schmutz In The Pool Pump, Coquis In Pots, Splinters On Fairways

[Note: This is another blog based on my weekly emails to my family on the mainland.]

12/18/21

Aloha Everybody --

Hope your Christmas season is going well.  Ours is ok, but our carpet cleaning disarray has put us bit behind on getting out our cards this year and we just got finished decorating the living room tree on Thursday.  I finally finished my shopping and found something for Karen, but I'll keep it secret in case she sees this.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she'll like the two things I got her.

On Wednesday my pool guy was able to fix our circulation problem.  I was worried that it might have been due to something clogging the suction line -- a real problem since cleaning it out would require a snake that could go around 90d corners.  The pipe, by the way, is encased in concrete and it isn't possible to get at it directly.  Well, it turned out that some debris had gotten past the filter and was partially clogging the pump itself.  My guy took the pump apart and cleaned out the schmutz.  Voila!  Problem solved.  Almost.  My little robot cleaner still wasn't working right so I took it apart again and found a small leaf blocking the water flow.  I removed it and that's all it took to get him back to his old self. All is well... for now.

The rain we've been having has really revved up the coqui frogs.  My neighbor has caught about 20 in the last week.  Our property isn't as attractive to them as his, but still I've caught 5.  Three of my recent kills were below our study window, near our vegetable garden.  One was a female who was being wooed by a male that up until now has been fairly quiet.  I got the female easily (the females are bigger and not as wary), but I couldn't spot the male until the next night, when I found him in a stack of garden pots (great place for brooding eggs). I caught him, then the next day I looked for eggs in the pots.  Damn if there wasn't another male hiding in there!  A regular coqui condo!  I sprayed him with citric acid and caught him by hand.  I went through all the pots and didn't find any more frogs or eggs, but I sprayed everything and bagged it up tight.  Hopefully this will take care of the problem for awhile.

Karen's golf course opened up again after the big storm and she was able to play on Wednesday with

Lots of Toothpicks

her snow-bird friend.  She said it looked like a tornado had gone through, with lots of limbs and even large trees down.  The workers had cleared the course but are still working on hauling away the trunks and limbs.  The wind must have been really powerful on those slopes.  She saw quite a few peacocks, so they seemed to have made it ok.  She also saw a fair number of Nenes, but nearly all were just solo.  We're hoping the mates are ok, and maybe just nesting.  Nesting usually doesn't happen this early, though, so we're still a little worried.  Karen will be monitoring the situation.

While Karen was playing golf I worked out at PF. I was pleased to see few people there, and as I've mentioned before, the mask and distancing policy is rigorously enforced.  Plus everyone is conscientious about wiping down the machines with disinfectant before and after using them.  This means that before I touch one it has been disinfected twice. In short, even with the new nasty variant around I felt pretty safe.  Oh, by the way, I ordered a couple of self-tests online and I'm keeping them handy in case we need a quick check.  I got the Lucira brand because it is nearly as accurate as a lab test in terms of correctly detecting both positive cases and negative cases  This kind costs more, but I think my insurance will reimburse me -- I'll let you know.

Off to market and the beach for our usual breakfast picnic.  Stay warm and healthy and be good for goodness sake -- Santa (and Alexa) is watching.....