The pond

I have had it with the pond. It won't stop leaking. I have cleaned it, paid to clean it, fixed the leaks, refixed the leaks, cursed it and kicked it too many times. The (second) expensive filter is still in the furnace room: I tried to carry it out the other day, but realized that it was still as stupidly heavy as it was just before winter, when it took me an hour to carry/roll/kick/curse out of its hole, across the lawn, down the steps, and into the said furnace room. The stoopid net I tried to lay over it to keep the leaves and debris out, didn't, because it became impossibly tangled and blew away into a heap and eventually ended up inside a garbage bag and on the truck (another $50 or so), and so what's-left of the water is full of fish, leaves, and bits of pampas grass.

I have some ideas:

- Empty the darn thing and cover it with a deck. This would be fantastic, as it would add to the usable outdoor space, give a nice view into the "woods", and give me somewhere for a barbeque. However, the price I've been quoted for building the deck is close to $4000, and I my piggy-bank isn't that fat.
- Empty the darn thing, build a deck, and drop in a smaller pond. My neighbour's idea. Would be really, really nice but would cost more than just a deck and would give the raccoons easy access to the fish. Have been through raccoon-fish trauma once and that was enough.
- Empty the darn thing, knock a hole or ten in the wall to drain rainwater, and make a sunken garden. I quite like this idea because I'd be able to work on it bit-by-bit, and it doesn't involve $4000. But if I make a hole in the wall, will the whole raised garden, and my septic system, collapse? (Thinks: Tom and Jerry cartoon where you remove one brick and the whole house falls into dust...)
- Lug the darn filter out from the furnace room, plug it in with the scary electric, reconnect the pumps, jump in the pond, scrape out all the debris, tickle the fish, and spend all summer (again) filling it from a hosepipe and complaining about the pond leaking (again).

Decisions, decisions, decisions.
I am enjoying the quiet without the sound of the pump/waterfall.