Swimming Hole or Natural Pool

At the farm we're working on basically 3 sets of lists. Just like a lot of families do. First there's the list of things that need immediate attention. Like replacing the car brakes or fixing things that are broken. Our second list is things that need doing soon such as wiring the new house and building the additions. But after that comes the third list, and it's the most fun list of all! The third list is basically my wish or dream list. Build a wood fired hot tub. Build some cottages for guests. Put in a micro hydro system. The sort of things that add pleasure once you've got the basic day to day living phases out of the way. And one thing I would love to have is a pool for swimming in the hot summer weather. Now a building a conventional underground pool would cost us more than we paid for our home, and even an above ground 4 foot deep pool bought cheaply from WalMart would cost $1200 by the time you put a small deck around it. Not to mention the pollution caused by all the chemicals used to keep the water clean and clear. We want something that's pleasurable, low maintenance and environmentally friendly. So how about a swimming hole? Swimming holes in the river side are fine but to just dig a hole in the middle of the field would quickly land us with a pool of green algae covered water. So the solution is to take a design for a natural pool and change it to suit our needs. The combination of deep water and a naturalized shallows really appeals to me. It's beautiful, functional, and pretty darn self sustaining. I know it's way down on the list of projects to build but it's one I'm really looking forward to. Check out this website for more info. natural pool
Or this one too http://www.inspirationgreen.com/natural-pools-swimming-ponds.html

Here are a couple of pics taken from the internet.