Daisy11,

Thanks for your reply. I'm so glad you told me that the mesh cover will do the same as the solid winter cover -- that's what we suspected too. I really don't get a lot of leaves, so we'll just leave it uncovered all winter.

We will also take your suggestion and drain it below the skimmer. Over the weekend, we had so much rain that it is sitting very close to the rails. My husband is draining most of that rain water today. We had an algae bloom too unfortunately, so we're doing the shock, brush, shock treatment now before we close the pool. Hopefully, we'll get it back to stable by this weekend. I'd like to close the pool this weekend. The kids haven't been in the pool since they started school 3 weeks ago.