Regular pool maintenance is required to keep your pool clean. Be sure to empty your skimmer and strainer baskets daily. Brush the walls and steps, and skim the surface. Be sure to vacuum your pool and clean your filter on a regular basis. If possible test the water to be sure you have at least 1 to 3ppm levels of chlorine and keep your pH under 7.8. These small steps can help keep your pool clean and healthy.
The weather is heating up here in Central Florida, and working on pools in the heat can be tough. It is so tempting to jump in the pool, but it is very unprofessional. Last week, my customer in Winter Springs offered me a glass of lemonade. I have not had lemonade in years, so I glady accepted. I was pleasantly suprised to find that this was very refreshing, and it really the spot.
Five years ago, Rich Mason’s friends lamented the numerous frogs and toads that turned up in their backyard swimming pool skimmer baskets, dead or impaired from the chemicals. One particularly warm, rainy night yielded more than 50 amphibian casualties, they reported.
Mason, a wildlife biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, began asking around, and other pool-owning friends also complained of amphibian death tolls. Occasionally, frogs were spotted swimming, or balanced on the floating balls that keep pool vacuum hoses afloat.
“Frogs seek anything to get out of the water,” says Mason, who lives near Annapolis, Md. “It just killed me that these frogs were dying.” These aquatic animals don’t drown in pools; the chlorine seeps into their permeable skin and poisons their bloodstreams. When an amphibian accidentally jumps in, it swims to the pool’s wall and bumps along until it finds something to climb onto. A frog could be dead within hours if it doesn’t find an exit. “Being a wildlife biologist, I thought, this doesn’t seem right,” Mason says.
While pools pose little danger to populations of common frogs and toads, rarer species have more to lose. For some endangered frog species in California and other parts of the country, Mason says, losing a few individuals could threaten populations.
Now, after years of design and testing, Froglog is a patent-pending invention that provides amphibians — as well as small mammals such as chipmunks — an escape route from pools. A thick foam tile with angled edges allows a small creature to crawl up out of the water; then a plastic mesh ramp, stabilized by two thin pieces of plastic (cut from vinyl siding) leads to the pool’s deck, where a beanbag-sized, canvas bag full of sand holds the contraption in place.
Like any good inventor, Mason did his homework first: He searched for research or studies that might have been done on amphibians and pools, but came up empty-handed. He even tapped into a network of herpetologist friends, and though anecdotal stories surfaced, the subject has been untouched by science.
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He scouted for other devices on the market that help animals escape swimming pools, and found one designed for larger animals, such as dogs and cats, that had to be drilled into the concrete pool deck. “I thought for most people, that wasn’t the answer,” he says.
So Mason formed the first Froglog from scrap foam and canvas from a local boating shop. A tinkerer at heart, Mason even fashioned a guillotine-like device using a can-crusher to punch a slot for the mesh ramp through the foam, which he shaped with a table saw, band saw and router. He tested and tweaked the design for size, shape and flexibility, allowing for varying water levels in pools, and built a funneled trap at the top of one Froglog to test if his invention was working. It was: In one night he found a handful of frogs waiting safely in the trap.
Mason regularly sells a couple hundred Froglogs each summer. Selling the $21 device is not a moneymaking venture — only now is Mason barely breaking even with his initial $15,000 investment. Instead, Mason sells Froglogs because he believes frogs shouldn’t needlessly perish in swimming pools.
“My main goal is to have it more widely used,” Mason says. “It’s doing some good.”
Customers hail from around the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia. And though the Froglog works for chipmunks and moles, one European company requested that Mason design a version sturdy enough for hedgehogs.
“We need to get into the tropics, too,” he says, because of the large diversity of amphibians and large number of swimming pools at hotels and resorts. Mason’s next move for his fledgling business may be to link up with a large international swimming pool supply company that would launch Froglogs around the world.
Magic Pool Services was recently recognized by Google as ” Favorite Place On Google “. We were given a sticker that includes a special bar code that potential customers may scan with cameras on their I-phones and BlackBerry’s. They can see our business listing on Google, read and write reviews, and us as a favorite right there.
Jon Gosselin can’t make media appearances
Photo AP/Matt Rourke
A Montgomery County judge has put an end to Jon Gosselin’s lounging around pool parties with bikini-clad women — at least for pay, that is.
Circuit Judge Michael D. Mason ruled in favor of network TLC Thursday, granting them a preliminary injunction preventing Gosselin from making paid appearances that would be in violation of his “Jon and Kate Plus 8″ contract with them — which is in essence any appearance not approved by them.
TLC filed a breach of contract lawsuit against Jon Gosselin back in October of this year, saying he had violated their exclusivity clause. Many at the time speculated that the lawsuit was in retaliation for Gosselin shutting down production of the show after he refused to allow his and soon-to-be-ex-wife Kate’s 8 children to be filmed any longer.
The injunction will remain in place until either the lawsuit is settled, or the outcome is determined in court — the trial is scheduled to start on April 19.
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