everything but the firepond sounds easy enough to do.
the firepond. it is the mud, and how far you have to reach down into the mud. and this alone my require a much larger size "tracked excavator with longer reach" to deal with.
there is a difference between a backhoe and an excavator.
a backhoe is what i refer to as what fits on back of a regular tractor via 3pt hitch. and majorty of the time same tractor has a FEL (front end loader) on it as well. (part is to have counter weight for the backhoe and vice vs)
an excavator, is the machine that you just sit in, and you can spin around 360 all day long and never move a wheel or track. and only thing it has is the backhoe. i generally think of excavators as having tracks like a tank. though there are ones with regular wheels.
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as far as saftey, they all can be beastly even the smaller little units that look like a kids toy. can kill someone extremely quick. this is more of a shock attempt to get ya to read up on a couple backhoe and/or excavator operator manuals on the internet does not matter how old or from what manufactor. due to most of the manuals should all have the basic info on saftey and use. about the only thing that is going to differ is the physical controls. some have levers some have joysticks some have foot pedals as well.
since ya not use to a given machine. it won't matter to you. but some old boy that has a specific setup of say 2 joy joysticks and a couple foot pedals vs say 4 levers and couple other levers to control things. it can make the old pro look like a newbie chump as they have to relearn the controls.
as far as learning, it does take some good hand eye coordination. and "depth" judgement. the depth judgement is a big one for me. every time i use it, i am always in different positions and places. and learning bucket depth and cutting front edge depth, and how to keep everything pulling into to you to keep nice smooth flat bottom trenches and like takes practice. without having to go back over things with a hand shovel.
all i can say is, start off slow. meaning keep the throttle down. you do not need RPM PTO speeds, you can run backhoes / excavators at idle speed, granted it is a extreme baby crawl. every person / tractor is different. for me though, 1/2 throttle (lever or foot peddle) to 3/4 is what i tend to run at. granted when i am near a house or building or like. i will cut things down and do the ugly slow baby crawl. it may take me a tad longer. but it is quicker and cheaper vs doing repairs to something i damaged.
also keep people away from you while operating the machine. more so while learning, it is to easy to hit wrong lever / pedal / joystick and cause things to twist and move and actually bury them into the pavement dead body and tombstone to beat it all within a blink of the eyes.
the controls themselves for me, all seem pretty easy. it is the getting the experience under belt of using the given machine, so you know about the digging and then putting the dirt back in and compacting it, and then leveling things out with same machine. and at same time learning the limits of you and the machine.
