All That Glitters is Blue
By Jim Bauer
@porwest (106678)
United States
July 23, 2025 4:40pm CST
It was long fight, but a good one, and in the end, the victory goes to none other than Porwest.
The pool is blue again. Finally.
Granted, I still have to work on the slight cloudiness after killing all the algae we had that greened it up and have some other little maintenance to do.
But the point is...it's blue.
Now what the trick is, is keeping it that way, as we won't be around for the next three and a half days on a camping trip. The pump will run on a timer that runs it for 8 hours at night.
That's what we usually do and usually that is just fine.
The battle will be the extreme heat we will continue to "enjoy" during this time which eats chlorine up like a whale siphons plankton out of the ocean. So, we'll over chlorinate and hopefully that will help to compensate a bit for our time away and the excessive heat.
By the way. About that heat. Okay. I like warm and absolutely abhor winter. But this is getting a bit ridiculous. 110 heat index is crazy to me. And then, we have around here, what's called "cornsweat." Have you ever heard of that?
It's the water that corn "sweats" into the air making the heat and humidity worse. It is said that 1 acre of corn will "sweat" 3,000 to 4,000 gallons of water per day, meaning in a state like Illinois, where I live, that's 48 billion gallons of water per day, enough to fill 73,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Damn corn.
11 people like this
9 responses
@Vikingswest1 (7444)
• United States
23 Jul
If you cover the pool and minimize sunlight, it can prevent any algae growth while you're away.
Corn sweat. Boy, howdy have I heard of it. It can bring humidity levels up across an entire region. All across the upper Midwest, where acres and acres of corn is grown, the humidity is awful.
I used to think relative humidity was that sweat that forms on the back of your neck when you're kissing your cousin.
3 people like this
@DaddyEvil (158341)
• United States
23 Jul
I've never kissed a cousin... like that, anyway... Sometimes I hug them, though. 
3 people like this
@moffittjc (125437)
• Gainesville, Florida
26 Jul
I had never heard of the term cornsweat. But that's absolutely crazy how much moisture the crops release into the air. I always wondered what causes humidity in the midwestern states; in Florida, it's the fact that we're surrounded by ocean.
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (125437)
• Gainesville, Florida
28 Jul
@porwest Interestingly, we've been in a state of heat emergency (for a lack of a better word) for over a week now, with temps hitting 100 pretty much everyday. And the humidity has been out of control as well, making it feel even worse. But yesterday something interesting happened: we hit 100 degrees like we've been doing, but the winds were coming from our north (over land) and not from the east or west from over the water. The result was very, very low humidity, and all of a sudden that 100 degrees didn't feel like 100 degrees, it felt more like the mid-80s.
1 person likes this
@porwest (106678)
• United States
28 Jul
@moffittjc I bet that was a nice break. I have to say, as much as I love summer, this heat we've had is just too much. It's not even enjoyable to be outside, honestly. Even with the pool, you get out and that's it, I have to go inside. The grass gets longer too because I have no desire to go out there and cut it even though I'm sitting on a rider. We badly need a break here.
1 person likes this
@porwest (106678)
• United States
25 Jul
It was a real scorcher yesterday, but luckily, it seems the camper AC is keeping up much better than our last trip. I hope it stays that way.
I'd never heard of cornsweat either until a couple of days ago. Now I suspect I'll be hearing it all the time. Funny how that goes, hey? lol
Just something else to kick this heat into higher gear. Ugh.
1 person likes this
@DaddyEvil (158341)
• United States
23 Jul
Hey! Congrats on the pool! The water looks fantastic! 
We aren't getting quite that hot but close enough at RealFeel 103F. At least it LOOKS inviting out in our yard, even if I don't want to step outside while it's this hot! Everything looks green and the wind is blowing just enough to keep the trees swaying and the too-long-grass moving, too. (We really need to mow again. *sigh* Maybe after the "heat dome" dissipates a little bit.)
We aren't getting quite that hot but close enough at RealFeel 103F. At least it LOOKS inviting out in our yard, even if I don't want to step outside while it's this hot! Everything looks green and the wind is blowing just enough to keep the trees swaying and the too-long-grass moving, too. (We really need to mow again. *sigh* Maybe after the "heat dome" dissipates a little bit.)1 person likes this
@LindaOHio (199378)
• United States
24 Jul
I've never heard of cornsweat; but HOORAY for the blue water.
1 person likes this
@LindaOHio (199378)
• United States
25 Jul
@porwest Started my article on HubPages. I think it's going to be a long one.
@RasmaSandra (88501)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
23 Jul
Well, it certainly is good for you, What happens when it rains?
1 person likes this
@porwest (106678)
• United States
24 Jul
Typically nothing, other than it adds some extra water to the pool. lol. But it can sometimes throw some of the chemicals off. But not bad enough too quickly that you can't make quick adjustments and not run into problems. The biggest killer is the heat and the sun. That'll do numbers on your chemicals and pool water quality before anything else will.
And that can affect things dramatically overnight.
1 person likes this
@Nakitakona (58405)
• Philippines
24 Jul
Is the pool floor and side the tiles are blue? The color of the pool depends on it.
1 person likes this
