Tis the Season to Be Loll-y

Nah na na na na, na na na naahhh!

 

It's that time of year when Hick gets Poolio ready for a summer of lolling around the pool in the evening. Sometimes during the day, but Hick is busy running all over three counties then, procuring merchandise for his Storage Unit Store. He's actually a bit late this year. April showers brought before-May mowers. Hick has been trying to keep up with the grass that shoots up overnight. 

 

Usually Hick starts the Poolio unveiling on May 1, shocks the water with Baquicil and whatever else the pool supply store says he needs from the sample he takes in, then lets the sun heat it up for a week. With more rain coming last week, Hick took the black cover off the top of Poolio. He had just gotten the accumulated winter water off the cover, and didn't want to deal with it again. The next morning, Hick had a surprise.

 

"I need to get the dip net. I found a dead squirrel in the pool. I guess he fell in, or maybe thought he'd get a drink, and then he couldn't get out with the water level low from me draining some out for the winter."

 

The NEXT day, Hick reported FIVE dead squirrels in Poolio!

 

"I think I've invented a better squirrel trap! Some guy up at the storage units was wanting to buy some .22 shells. He said he has a real bad squirrel problem. I told him there's an easier way to kill them! And cheaper these days, too!"

 

The day after THAT, when I came home from town, I saw another victim.

 

 

That is NOT a small specimen! It's a big ol' freeloader, fattened on dry dog food that Hick has once again been putting in the self-feeder on the back porch. The squirrels feed themselves more than the dogs. The dogs can sometimes be bothered to give chase, if they're in the mood. But Hick has caught seven squirrels, to Jack's one.

 

Here's the deal. Hick is not going to drain Poolio and fill him with fresh water! He never does. He leaves the same water in there year after year. He says the chemicals purify the water. I say the particulate matter doesn't get zapped into thin air by the chemicals. Hick says they get filtered out. I say he is swimming in buttwater soup, from all the years of him and the boys lolling around in the same water.

Fresh water won't cost a thing! Only time and elbow grease. We have a WELL, by cracky! No water bill. A spigot out in the yard (it's not like we have to lower a bucket to fill Poolio by a bucket brigade) to attach the hose and let run. That's how Hick tops off Poolio anyway. 

I'm not sure how Hick drains Poolio in the fall. Maybe he sticks a hose in there and gets it started and siphons it out to the desired level. It's not like he has to dip out the water with a chipped teacup found in a storage locker, or hire a tank truck to suck it out like a septic tank. That contaminated squirrelly water can drain out across the back yard, filtering itself as nature intended as it seeps through the ground to rejoin the water table that provides for our well.

These dang squirrels are just puffy-tailed rats. They're in no danger of becoming extinct. They grow bold! One with white markings on his ears jumped on the kitchen window screens THREE TIMES Monday morning, after he sat on the rail LOOKING at me, and I said, "GET OUT OF HERE!"

Hick said he saw a small squirrel when he put out the dog food (!) in the self feeder.

"I could have reached down to pet it. I thought about it. But what if it BIT me?"

[Was he throwing some shade at my failed chipmunk rescue, perhaps?]

 

"You should have grabbed it by the tail and swung it into the porch post. Easy peasy. No mess. No pain and suffering for the squirrel."

 

Hick reluctantly decided that maybe he DIDN'T build a better squirrel trap.

 

"It's a hard way for them to die. Maybe I should put the ladder back in so they can climb out."

 

"NO! I prefer the roach motel method. Squirrels check in, but they don't check out."

 

"I thought surely I'd gotten rid of most of them squirrels, but this morning they was as many of them as before!"

 

"Yeah. You're putting out FOOD for them! It's like a free buffet."

 

You won't find Val swimming in Poolio this summer. In my mind, Poolio has gone from Buttwater Soup to Buttwater Squirrel Corpse Gumbo.