This was my biggest fail. It looks so simple… I thought… try it… what can go wrong?
You see, this is a hay bale swimming pool. You line up some bales of hay, insert a waterproof liner, tie a rope around it to keep it in place…. and voila! Swimming pool!
I have been told I do tend to over think things. I decided I wanted a pool to be a bit deeper than 3 ft. I wanted 4–5 ft deep. So… rather than those 2 levels of hay bales as pictured… I needed 3.
I also started counting numbers in my head… 6 children… 18 grandchildren… myself, mom, dad… and likely the 4–5 people my kids would at the last minute call me and ask could they bring for the holiday… I was doing this for the 4th of July gathering we were planning… and then the 15–20 other relatives that would likely make an appearance.
I began constructing…
I had been given 300 bales of hay. So…
I constructed a swimming pool that was 64 ft long and 48 ft wide.
I’m not gonna lie… I thought that damn pool was gonna be the death of me. My brother helped me with the top row.
As I was standing inside while we were constructing the 4th side it occurred to me… how the heck was I gonna get out of this thing once I got in? I mean… I’m 5′2″… and I was at the time 52. I wasn’t exactly going to just hurdle the bales of hay to jump out.
I had the brilliant idea… use some bales and create steps.
It’s the steps that did me in…
3 bales wide… a nice set of steps.
I had actually staggered the bales both bottom to top and inside to outside (2 deep) in a brick fashion… telling myself that would make it a more stable structure.
I found a tarp on amazon that was 120 ft long x 80 ft wide.
I found rope in a 250 ft length.
I inserted the liner… tied the outside as shown in the top photo… and then found that with the steps I had to untie the rope… the weight of the water as it was filling was pulling the liner to mould it around the steps.
I kept an eye on the liner to make sure it didn’t get pulled into the pool as it was filling.
I had a garden hose laying over the top of the bales running… for 5 days.
I was ever so impressed with my thinking this whole thing through…
I had a pump to filter the water in the pool. I had chlorine to keep it from turning green from algae. I had inflatable palm trees… because… well because you simply need them when you create such a masterpiece. I had ceramic alligators with flashing red lights for eyes… just to kind of creep out the kids a bit… and then… I had a light up disco ball that you tossed in the pool to shoot out rays of different color under the water.
I had an assortment of floats, etc. Including a floating cooler. I even had an inflatable movie screen we were going to attach to one side so we could watch movies at night while floating in the pool.
and then… it happened.
I was at the food banc… and got a frantic call from mom. It was a windy day… we had winds gusting up to 70 mph.
Mom: “Joyce… the pool collapsed… the wind got ahold of the liner and pulled it through the space between a couple of the bales… and pulled it all the way through. There are hay bales everywhere!… the liner is flapping like a sail boat as it’s blowing across the field!”
Me: “I’d suggest that someone turn the water off.”
sigh… that darn pool would have been full by that evening… instead… it was scattered over a larger area than you’d think wind could move those bales… though they could have been carried along on the current from the water gushing out of the pool.
It was 4 days before the family was going to show up… no time to try to rebuild it.
It remains my biggest DIY fail… and every summer the kids do their best to goad me into trying to build it again.
But… had it worked… it would have been SPECTACULAR!!!
NOTE** While I appreciate efforts to correct me when I am telling a story… I do apologize if some are offended that I spelled food banc as I did. However, it is not a typo. St Clair County Food Banc This is how the Catholic nuns chose to spell it when they created the St. Clair County Food Banc nearly 30 years ago.
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