Opening our Above Ground Pool

Opening up an above ground pool is not that difficult, even for someone like me who is not just lazy iffen you gots a riding mower, I can mow the hell out of your yard.
but technically incompetent...  and, the last thing you want me to do is repair something either inside or outside the house.  However,

Last fall, the first task was to backwash and rinse the poop storage tank to clean out the sand for the winter.  Once this was accomplished,  we drained the water out of our above ground pool down to below the pipes, the put in plugs so that water would not enter the pipes and possibly freeze, cracking the pipes.  We took cap off the bottom of the pump tank and let the water completely drain out as part of our closing the pool.

Once that was done, we covered the surface of the pool with a tarp and put bricks on top of the tarp every 18 inches to hold it securely to the deck.  Not trusting the bricks to hold, we tied the tarp to the rails of the deck using nylon rope and eight strategic points around the circumference of the pool.

OPENING OUR ABOVE GROUND POOL:

1. Remove all the water off the tarp covering the pool
2. Remove the bricks and nylon ropes
3. Roll back the tarp until completely free of the pool
4. Remove the two plugs preventing water from getting into the pipes
5. Return the cap to the pump tank
6. Fill the pool back up with water
7. Start the pump
8. Clean the pool

Just Relaxing a bit...

About 12-15 years ago, after my wife and I paid off our mortgage on the house, we decided to renovate the outside of our house in case we did not have enough money to afford to go on a vacation to Myrtle Beach, SC which is where we both like to go in the summers.
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Our first order-of-business was to install an above ground about 24-26 feet in diameter, then build a deck around the pool big enough for me to completely walk around to clean and wide enough to add a 12 foot by 12 foot gazebo along with a 5-person hot tub next to the wall of the house since the pool proper was about 10-12 feet away from the house. 

During those 12-15 years, we have had to do nothing to our pool or pump (except add a new motor) but our hot tub (a Hot Springs Prodigy) has required maintenance twice at a cost of about 1/2 of what we paid for it.  Part of the problem is that we were using powders to clean the tub and that was causing problems even though powders is what the seller recommended we use.  Once we switched to liquid, our only issues has been replacing the heating elements. 

A month ago, our hot tub stopped heating the water and we called the technicians expecting a $2,000 bill and decided that we would use our COVID-19 stimulus money from the Government but it was just a bad switch in the electrical box which cost us substantially less except for the huge labor fee.

My wife sits under the gazebo most every day in the summer when it is not raining or lays in a lounge chair soaking up the sun and if she gets too hot, cools off in the pool.  I use the pool on a daily basis but have to wear long sleeves because of my Melanoma and the sun, but what I do is walk around the circumference of the pool for exercise.

As far as the hot tub is concerned, I use it at least every other night all year long, remaining in the 104 degree water for about 30 minutes each time.  The jets are pre programmed to only last 15 minutes for health reasons.

Our investment in our backyard was the best money we every spent and those monies did not come from salary or savings but from consulting fees that I earned on-the-side as a second job.  If I had remained in NC, my skill set would have been a dime-a-dozen and no consulting would have ever come my way, but in TN I was unique and consulting gigs were easy to acquire.