Playtex is our new partner in pond scum fight

Tiny single-celled organisms displayed on a plastic bucket were no match for the new fighting panty net.

In our never-ending battle to rid our pond of scum and pestilence, we have enlisted a new ally in our weapons arsenal: Playtex control-top panty hose.
Like everything else, the community pond out back is at record highs. And until recently, so was its coating of green stuff, mostly duckweed and algae.

Some of the 30 pounds of algae harvest.

We bought a pool net from Walmart and it did a good job scooping out the duckweed. Duckweed is a small plant that supposedly arrives on the feet of geese and ducks and multiplies on the water surface.
But the net was worthless at filtering the algae. Algae is a single-celled plant and just about the size of a grain of sand and easily escaped the coarse net. Viewed from a distance, the green stuff looks like a foamy scum that should be easy to capture. It is not.
Fortunately, Stan has access to Kathleen's lingerie drawer.

10-foot tool rigged with black panty filter

The panty waist stretched perfectly over the rectangular frame of the Walmart pool net, creating a filter fine enough to capture a grain of sand. At first the algae just ran down into the legs, and got trapped in the ankles, but after tying the legs off at the thigh and snipping off the feet, the device was perfected. Yesterday, thanks to a cooperative northwest wind, Stan scooped at least 30 pounds of algae off the surface and deposited the mass on the bank to bleach out in the sun. The tough panty hose shows no sign of giving up, ready for more green scoops.
Our neighbor Phyllis was impressed with the harvest. "There must be something you can use all that stuff for," she commented as she surveyed the fresh harvest.
Perhaps we could bake it into bread sticks and feed the birds.

The algae will return soon enough to cloud the blue skies now reflected in the pond, but we've got a new weapon.