I moved a bunch more dirt this morning, and when Alex appeared he helped.  The pile of dirt by the fence is now gone, not having lasted 24 hours.  Here, as promised, are some 'after' pictures.

Now I'll have a much better view from the hot tub.

Once that was done we went to deal with the dirt by the irrigation box.  When Alex moved my block steps out of the way he found this cocoon on one of them:

The weeds are so thick back there that we decided the dirt spreading would need to wait until after we deal with the weeds. 

Yesterday this pricey boat, belonging to a friend of Alex's, arrived for a week's stay.

Brownie does not appear impressed...