Thanks for those of you that responded to my pond-cleaning questions.
After deciding not to invest in a shop-vac (and getting very negative
responses from tool rental places when I told them what I wanted to do with
THEIR shop-vac), and went out and bought a pair of hip wader boots at the
Army/Navy store, gently got into the pond, pulled out all the plants and
then used my net and finally my bare hands to pull out most of the gunk from
the bottom. After seeing how much leaf matter was down there, I will
never go without a net again, even for a few weeks! I pulled out four
trash bags full of the stuff.
I then topped off the pond (with adequate dechlorinator added), put the
net back on and admired my work. The water's cloudy right now from all the
gunk I stirred up, but I look forward to a clear pond and I'm ready to head
over to Atlanta Water Gardens for some new plants/fish/tadpoles...
Kirsten