Hi Guys,
Thanks for all your replies and recommendations and special thanks to jeffhasapond for moving my pictures over from the introduction section.

First, I forgot to address Rainman�s question about what was unpleasant about swimming. First my wife didn�t like the squishy bottom on our first swims so I built the floating dock but didn�t know enough about the mechanics of floating docks and it is hard to get on and off. A ladder and putting more water in the barrels would fix that but by then, still during the first summer we had the pond, the weeds had grown to the point that when we brushed against them we got dirty deposits all over our legs and anything else that touched the weeds. This was before the overgrowth of the water clover and before I discovered the Israeli Carp and Koi could do a pretty good job of controlling the softer weeds that I put in there to �put oxygen in the water.� Any weeds in the swimming area the fish didn�t eat could be easily removed with a rake on a rope. When the pond was first dug I bought a dump truck load of sand and had it spread in the area designated for swimming. What this did was turn the bottom of the swimming area into quicksand that would bury us thigh deep in seconds and did nothing positive for the swimming experience.
Rainman also suggested two kinds of lime and I didn�t respond adequately earlier. When I first had the pond dug and before the water was in it I spread some special kind of lime all over the bottom of the pond. I don�t know if it was this hydrated lime or what but I recall our local farm supply had to order it special for me. I wonder if someone could enlighten me about the different limes for ponds? Am I reading between the lines correctly that enough lime would reduce or eliminate the �wet dust� that kicks up every time the bottom is disturbed? If I have done a good job of raking all the weeds out of an area of the pond and a fairly large fish for what ever reason swims quickly through that area I can see the dusty trail in the water behind them. Left alone the pond will have fairly clear water but left alone the weeds are thick everywhere except for the one summer when the carp and koi were large enough and their numbers were high enough to do a fairly good job of controlling the softer kinds of weeds. Raking weeds out always makes huge clouds of silt that takes over 34 hours to completely settle and longer than that before the water completely clears to it�s normal state.
So far I haven�t found anything that eats the water clover except for the occasional March that a pair of geese uses the island to raise a clutch. Unfortunately they never stick around long enough to do any good. There is a 7 acre pond about a half mile through the woods from our pond. Whenever a pair of geese has a nest on our island they hatch out the babies but only stay for a day or two before leaving for the larger pond where there are other geese. I think they eat it then because there is little else growing in March. This water clover is the one problem that I don�t have an acceptable solution for. I don�t really want to drain the pond but I think I have to get rid of this plant before it spreads to other ponds downstream from me. As far as I can tell I�m the only person with a pond in this area that has this weed. I feel the weight of responsible stewardship to get rid of this weed but I am pretty strongly against using toxic chemistry to do it. Draining the pond, letting it dry out enough to get a bobcat safely in and out and digging up the root mat is the only thing that I can think of to get rid of it. I haven�t tried it but I don�t think draining the pond and having a controlled burn would do it either. It forms a firm thick mat beneath where ever it grows. I�m hoping that someone has another solution, like something that eats it. But I�m not optimistic that will happen so my next goal here is to get counsel on how to dig this stuff up and ensure I got it all. It completely surrounds my pond and island and is only absent in areas where I mechanically and with great difficulty remove it with shovels, rakes and sweat. Unless I had an army to remove it in one day manually it would re-grow and fill in the first area before I got to the last area.

Kru Heller
Powhatan, Va.