Janet,
Thanks for your kind welcome. I finally gathered all the information needed to fill in my pool chart for this site and just completed that. I've also been getting acquainted with my new drop testing kit I bought at Ben's suggestion.

To answer you questions: 1) I float Leslie's 3" chlorine tabs 2) Still unsure of hardness readings though. After 5 drops the pool water showed barely a hint of pink and there was no change towards blue after 12 drops. I have been told by both Leslie's and pool guy, we use except during winter, that the water in the pool is quite hard and needs to be changed. We haven't changed since we moved in in 2006. 3) Tested Fill water twice and it appeared to be off the chart hard ?? I stopped after adding 20 drops 1st time and 12 the second time. Plan to retest end of Jan when fill water will be coming from canals again and not from temporary well source.