life on the wand

I haven't had experience cleaning a DE pool filter before, so when our pool filter needed a thorough cleaning rather than just a back flush Joyce and I got out the camera in case we needed pictures to figure out how to put it back together. Turns out it wasn't too tough. The first surprise was the shape of the elements, the second was the amount of gunk on them.

Once we extracted the filter elements and removed the bolt to take them apart we lined them up against the fence and cleaned them off. Yuck!

Putting them back together involved some ingenuity. First, we had to superglue a portion of one of the filters back together, then figure out that it is easier to assemble the elements with the assembly turned upside down.

With the filter cleaned up and reassembled back into the filter cover it went. We added the DE powder to the skimmer baskets after letting the pump get started and bleeding the air out of the filter.

The whole job took about two hours, but now that we know what we are doing I think we could do it in an hour or less.
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All three of my cars needed to have the oil changed. Based on input from various friends and acquaintances, I decided to switch to synthetic oil today. I found that the fully synthetic oil costs twice as much as conventional oil, but supposedly will last more than twice as long before needing to be changed. Thus, it should save the cost of a filter plus my time of changing the oil. And, I guess it might help the environment with less waste oil to dispose of. I got one of the cars finished this evening. It took longer than expected because of interruptions and because I decided to rotate the tires every time I change the oil now. While rotating the tires I fixed the wires that that made the brake-wear light illuminate on the dash. Two more cars to go, and each of them also need new air filter, spark plugs, etc. May not get much else done this weekend.
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Little Aggie was a very active and curious rat that loved to run and hop while exploring new areas. She developed tumors several months ago and they grew so large she could hardly walk. When we got back from camping we noticed that the tumors were starting to ulcerate so we took Aggie to the vet and they agreed the only thing to do was to put her to sleep. So, Philip, Cara and I watched as she breathed her last breaths. The end of life is sad, even for a rat.
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We were invited to spend this week at Garner State Park near Concan TX. For the past 12 or 14 years the Lerma and Depwe families have been going to Garner before Memorial Day and camping, along with invited friends. Now that we have moved back to Texas we were invited. The park is beautiful as expected -- we were actually there once before but during the summer when it is much more crowded -- but the weather was a bit wet. We were in a tent that is pretty old and hasn't been used in at least 7 years if not much longer. When it rained the tent leaked, and it rained quite a bit. One night we had a tremendous thunder and lightening storm, one of the most impressive I have witnessed. We threw the tent away when we left the park on Thursday, thus forcing us to either buy another tent or upgrade to a pop-up or some other kind of camper before we go camping again. We also damaged a canopy pavilion that managed to hold water on the roof until it collapsed. But, all the rain kept the weather cool which was nice for hiking.
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Joyce's brother Edward had a mountain bicycle that we now have. I've been wanting to go for a ride on the trails in Murrell Park on the northeast corner of Grapevine Lake. Wow! What a ride! Great scenery, great paths, lots of fun. I had so much fun that I didn't realize I had been riding for over an hour until I noticed my legs were shaking. Well, now on to the tasks of the day, such as fixing the air compressor, spraying weed killer on the yard, etc.
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