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• Swimming can give you a full body workout
• Great way to destress as many believe the water has a calming effect
• A gentle swim can burn as many as 200 calories in 30 minutes
• Lowers the risk of cardiovascular disease
• Increase energy levels
• A form of exercise that doesn’t require much sweating

A pool party can come to an end fast if bees show up uninvited. It turns out, most bees are attracted to pools because they want to quench their thirst. Luckily, there are a couple of ways to make sure they don’t crash the party.
Bring out the plants. While bees normally love plants, they aren’t friends with all of them – including mint and lemongrass. Feel free to plant these near your pool to act as a natural repellant.
Use dryer sheets. As mentioned before, certain smells can be a real turn off for bees. We use dryer sheets to give our clothes a fresh smell, but bees hate them. Place the dryer sheets in cups around the pool to keep bees away. Be sure to change them once they lose their scent.

There are so many great reasons why swimming is good for your body. Here are just a few:
1. It incorporates both cardio and strength training into your workout, but it’s not hard on your joints.
Unless you’re cheating and touching the bottom of the pool during your workout, you have to be moving at all times or you’ll sink. Plus, because water is so much denser than air, it provides your muscles with constant resistance. Not to mention, you could have a crazy intense workout in the pool and be right back in the water the next day – because swimming is such a low-impact workout. So, not only is it good for injured athletes or those with fragile joints, it’s even great for those who want to work hard without feeling like their body has been through the ringer the next day
2. It’s great for your lungs, so it makes you a better runner.
Because we can’t breathe underwater, our body learns to use oxygen more efficiently when we’re swimming – adapting to take in more fresh air with every breath, and expel more carbon dioxide with every exhalation. This can allow for lower resting heart rates, lower blood pressure, and endurance capacity, which can make it easier to train for longer running exercises that require a lot of endurance.
3. It eases stress and makes you biologically younger.
We know that exercise in general produces endorphins that make you feel happy and energized, but swimming can boost your mood even more. When you’re underwater, you can’t hear or see much of anything, so the sensory overload that we experience on a daily basis is reduced significantly. Plus, according to a study done by Indiana University, even all the way up to your 70^th birthday, swimming can positively affect blood pressure, cholesterol levels, cardiovascular performance, central nervous system health, cognitive functioning, muscle mass, and blood chemistry, making frequent swimmers biologically up to 20 years younger than their actual age.

Many people often overlook cleaning their hot tub cover but it’s an important part of the maintenance routine. Without proper maintenance, your cover may begin to crack, fade, become heavier and even begin to stink. Be prepared to clean your cover every two weeks, by wiping it down and taking an extra few moments to inspect for any damages.
Use a standard garden hose to loosen up debris and dirt on the cover. The hot tub cover features a special top coat of vinyl that can become cracked or faded when exposed to harsh chemicals or weather elements. Select a product designed to clean hot tub covers such as Cover Care by Natural Chemistry. Avoid using cleaners with oil, bleach, silicone, detergent or alcohol, which will destroy the top coat. The use of an oil-based product will actually attract the sun’s rays faster causing the cover to deteriorate faster. Additionally, try to limit the cover’s exposure to sunlight or winter elements by concealing it with a plastic tarp.
It’s also important to maintain the proper chemical levels to keep the integrity of the cover and protect your investment. If the water is unbalanced the acidic elements may cause the cover to come apart at the seams, bulge and even become discolored.
The cover includes foam pieces, which can become bogged down in water making it extremely heavy. To help keep your cover light, unzip the edges for a few hours to let the cover dry out.
Following all of these steps will help keep the musty odor away.
Have a question? Please use the “Contact Section” to submit a question about your pool or hot tub.
-Kim