Let's Have A Pool Party!

Well here it is , the middle of July already. What a busy summer! It will be over before I get started enjoying it. The garden is doing great. I have had radishes, zucchini, and green onions from it. After the rain last Sat. the first planting of beans are blooming like crazy and I have little green tomatoes forming on the tomato plants. Will be canning some things before long if I have good luck.
Good luck I am not having with my pool. Adam decided he wanted to put it up on one of the two days it was in the 90's. So he did. I called my neighbor who has a water business and he said he could come the next day at 8:00 in the morning. Who, in his right mind delivers water at 8:00 in the morning? Anyway I got up at 6:30 to be sure and be awake and have some coffee before he got here that day. He came at 8:00. It was already so muggy that I had sweat already running down my face. Started the pump and after a few feet of water was pumped in the pool, I noticed a little stream of water coming from under the edge of the pool. I very calmly said," Greg, is that water coming from my pool?" to which he replied," Uh-oh, yeah, you got a problem there." I told him to finish putting that load in and I would try and get one of the patches that will work under water ,that he told me about. He suggested I set a gallon jug of water on the hole and it might stop it until I got the patch put on. After he left, I went in the house and found an empty milk jug. I figured when it filled with water it would set on the hole in the bottom of the pool. I put in in the pool, on the hole and it floated away. Good grief! I had to go hunt the broom so I could reach the stupid jug and drag it over to the side of the pool, so I could reach it. I got the bright idea of putting some rocks in it and it did stay on the hole, but the rocks had dirt on them so I had a bunch of dirt in my clean water.
Took a couple of days before I got to Wal-Mart to get the patch kit. By now the temperature is only in the 70's. Finally made Adam get in the pool and put the patch on. Greg had told me his customers swore by those patches and he was right. It stopped the leak right away. The temperatures are staying in the 70's which is too cold to get in the pool, but I figured it needed to have the filter turned on to keep the water clean. I told Adam to go ahead and hook the filter pump up and it looked like he had done the job. So I got the extension cord from the garage and pulled it to the pump and plugged it in. Looked like I had turned Niagara Falls on. Had to unplug it real fast. Sure, Adam had hooked the pump up, but he didn't check to see if it had a filter in it. Had to make another trip to Mansfield to get a filter. I had got some shock while I was at the store so I put it in the pool and the water became real clear again.
After I got the filter, I put it in the pump and plugged it in again. Not good. Water was leaking out of both ends of the hose on the pump.Unplugged again and waited for Adam to get home. He was no help. We couldn't get those hose to stop leaking. We inspected one of the hose and found it had about 5 cracks in it on one end. Went to the pool place to but new hose but you can't buy hoses for Intex pools at a pool place. Got on line to order new ones. The only site I found with the hose for the model pump I have, was out of stock. I get the bright idea to put duct tape on it until I might can order some new ones. Can't find my duct tape. I have some strapping tape so I use that. Didn't work. A friend came by and said he could put some kind of rubber cement on it and then duct tape over that so he took it home with him and when he brought it back and hooked it up, it worked good,but the cement and duct tape made the end heavy and so it pulled downward so hard it split the other end. My friend took it back home with him to fix the other end. I am considering buying a new pump( they had one at Meijers on sale for $30.00 but i wasn't sure it would work on my pool) but Sam said he would get it fixed for me , so I waited. When he got the other end fixed, we put a wire around it and tied it to the medal part of the pool so it would not have all that heavy weight pulling on it. It worked!!!!! Now the other hose that doesn't have any splits is leaking again except when the pump is running so we have to put the stopper in the end of the hose to keep it from leaking when the pump is not on. We got a bigger 0- ring but Adam hasn't put in in the end of the hose yet. We think this will stop the leak.
Now the water is real green again and I will have to go and buy some more shock. The really irritating thing about this whole mess, is that no one has been in that stupid pool yet.I got in once and walked around with the net getting the bugs and leaves out. ( By the way, the Japanese Beetles love the pool and there are dozens in it every day that I have to scoop out). Adam has informed me that he will probably be in it this weekend if we get it to turn some other color than green.I watched the weather a while ago and the weatherman said it would probably rain this weekend. Oh, well the Japanese Beetles are having fun in the pool anyway.