Well Alfie did not exactly get the life of leisure I promised him. I immediately put him to work on my 'rock pile' in the back yard that was hidden under years of blackberry growth.
A lot of rocks to screen. This is excess soil and fill that accumulated from previous projects around the yard like the perimeter drainage, garden sprinklers, and the start of a waterfall, pond and stream.
Not exactly Kutny's Soils scale, but it worked wonderfully.
The finished screened pile (about 20 cubic yards worth) - I have a lot of stone work in my future. Plan on a stone wall fence, stone wall raised garden beds, stone herb gardens, and a selection of stone and gravel stream bed.
But just before getting to the above finished stage, poor Alfie had to have a rest. He had been leaking fluids before I liberated him, but the vendor had thought they had addressed the issue by flushing and cleaning the radiator. Well the problem was a bit more terminal than that and poor Alfie required bed rest for the last 3-4 weeks while we searched for a suitable heart donor. A suitable replacement water pump was located last Friday and Alfie went under the knife last Monday. After 4 hours of anticipation and worry, wondering if he would or would not make it, Alfie woke up and jumped out of bed and started digging.
After looking at the pump that was removed, we are amazed that it was still in one piece with the cracks radiating around the entire perimeter. We are thrilled with his recovery to date but he is not out of the woods yet. He still gets flushed after a few hours work and needs to take a break to cool down. We will work together to get through this season and then he will go see a specialist. We are all routing for him here at SENWI.
