Project Filtration: Step One

I'm not sure if you remember, but our water stinks. In its unfiltered state, it stinks like rotten eggs. In its current filtered state, it stinks like rotten eggs a little less. We've already spent plenty of money on two different chlorination systems that don't really work. Flamingo Joe has determined that the problem is the distance between the well pump and the chlorination system, which is, to be specific, something like a gazillion feet apart. So, as is his way, Flamingo Joe has a plan to fix the water problem without spending another $5000 on something that doesn't work. Step 1 of his plan involved the delivery of 6 yards of crushed shell this morning:

(Note that in the photo above it is no longer morning, it is 8:15 p.m. because that is when Flamingo Joe was able to start working on the project.) The idea was to move the big pile of crushed shell across the driveway to the well pump area. Flamingo Joe's specific intructions to both me and Grandma this morning before the shell was delivered was for us to tell the driver to dump the shell on the driveway. When I repeated Joe's instructions back to him to make sure I understood him correctly, I said, "So dump the shell beside the driveway by the oak tree?" And Flamingo Joe probably said, "On the driveway" but I was already distracted by a squirrel or something because when the driver got there, I had him dump the shell beside the driveway by the big oak tree, which was about 10 or so feet further away than Flamingo Joe had envisioned. So when we pulled up into the driveway after a trip to Lowe's at 7:45 and FJ asked if I was going to help move the shell, I kind of felt obligated.

As you know, it would not be a project at Casa Flamingo unless a necessary tool had to be fixed before actual work on the project could begin, so Flamingo Joe had to fix the wheelbarrow:

Once the wheelbarrow was fixed, it was time to get to work. We had the boys' help for about three minutes:

And then they decided to play King of the Mountain. King of the Mountain on a hill of crushed shells is painful, which is why Mace kept crying for someone to get him down and once lifted off the hill, he would climb back up.

Here's a glimpse of Step 1, all done:

After we were finished with Step 1, Flamingo Joe tried to describe Steps 2 through 72 to me and I got lost around Step 4 (something about a U-shaped pipe) because I thought I saw a bat, but I assume he knows what he's doing and that soon we will have sweet-smelling water that doesn't eat up the insides of the toilet. Woo-hoo!