Summer is coming to an end

It occured to me last night that it might be time to think about closing the pool for the summer. I'll be working during the week and we'd have the weekends but we only have one weekend until Peyton and I go to TN and by the time we get back the weather will be winding down to fall. It will take A LONG time to drain so I figured I'd better start today. I learned a cool trick that drains it even slower than just pulling the plug but I get to direct the water and not flood one area of the backyard all at once. I learned how to use the water hose to siphon it out. So far its been draining a little over an hour and you can hardly notice a change. But I figure that's exactly how we filled it so it'll eventually work! Except that I plan to use a few days to drain it so that we don't flood the backyard. It holds a little less than 4,500 gallons.
... update ... another cool thing about draining the pool this way- it doesnt flood the backyard anyway! It drains out so slowly that the water is pretty much soaked up instead of pooling! I do have to move the hose around a little but its not nearly as bad as I expected. Just very slow! It took 2 whole days to fill the pool and I would expect that it will take that long or longer to drain.

I know you were all riveted by this.