(SPOILER ALERT):
I always thought the "loose stones" could be useful in the lift so as not to have to wait for it to rain to get those first few "seeds" for the orchard. When I was first playing and fixed the lift, it was the first place I took a villager in the hopes of getting them to put one of those rocks in the bucket on the lift. Made a lot of sense to me . . . Still don't know why it shouldn't work. They can carry those rocks all over the village and up the path when they exercise. Maybe they're too big to fit in the lift?? (But you'd think there'd be smaller ones somewhere in the area.) And why couldn't they use water from the waterfall for the lift?? They can carry it to the fire, when needed.
But, alas, those rocks are destined to sit in a pile and be forever "loose rocks."
_________________________
iMac / OSX 10.3.9/1.25 GHzPowerPC G4/256MB DDR SDRAM/64 MB VRAM