{"id":1058,"date":"2013-04-07T22:44:41","date_gmt":"2013-04-07T22:44:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/?p=1058"},"modified":"2013-04-07T22:44:41","modified_gmt":"2013-04-07T22:44:41","slug":"and-then-there-was-a-gravel-path","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/?p=1058","title":{"rendered":"And Then There Was a Gravel Path!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gosh, I am constantly amazed by how much gets done when I have volunteers over. It’s been a beautiful weekend and I’m so glad to have spent it outdoors getting lots done, but I sure am knackered.<\/p>\n

\"Elmo<\/p>\n

Elmo, in addition to tending a fire, found the end of the water pipe that should bring us our much-hoped-for running water down on the neighours’ garden path, under a stone slab. But it was unconnected. So a bit of plumbing is in order. Still, progress is progress!<\/p>\n

\"Veronica<\/p>\n

Veronica and Michelle removed this glass and much, much more from the soon-to-be vegetable plot, which is nearly ready for planting (if it ever gets warm enough.)<\/p>\n

\"Bob<\/p>\n

Bob and Lisa were detailed to design and build a bench from some of the thicker bits of reclaimed wood. They seemed to take well to the task, and the resulting bench was a beauty.<\/p>\n

\"the<\/p>\n

In celebration, they sat on it while roasting sausages over the fire for dinner, and there was no collapse, so we counted it a grand success.<\/p>\n

\"the<\/p>\n

But the big news was the path. I wanted to get as far as we could with a gravel path so that my parents would have an un-muddy walk to the caravan when they stayed in it, but I never imagined we’d get so far.<\/p>\n

\"the<\/p>\n

Lizzy, Ange and Tom spent much of Saturday scraping the topsoil off the hard-packed gravel track beneath, which was much easier to do in places where we didn’t have to hand-excavate carefully around tree roots. Though to imply that it was easy anywhere would be a disservice to the team. It was very hard work.<\/p>\n

\"laying<\/p>\n

But with a large team it quickly got done and we added the first gravel, flanked by bits of old skirting board, on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n

\"the<\/p>\n

The gravel filling had to stop while we finished the extremely time-consuming task of scraping the soil from around the large and established tree roots that crossed the path, but I an not allowed to harm the trees, and wouldn’t want to anyway, so it had to be done.<\/p>\n

We also had to wait for Lisa, who turned out to be the best dry stone waller among us (which, I’m afraid, isn’t saying\u00a0 much, though she did a very good job) put up a bit of a retaining wall around the area of the caravans, where the path had to widen into the hillside a bit to make room for the porch I will be building in the coming week.<\/p>\n

By the end of Sunday, we had a complete path from as near to the drive as we could get without moving the trailer right to the door of the caravan my parents will be staying in.<\/p>\n

\"the<\/p>\n

I am very, very pleased.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gosh, I am constantly amazed by how much gets done when I have volunteers over. It’s been a beautiful weekend and I’m so glad to have spent it outdoors getting lots done, but I sure am knackered. Elmo, in addition … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1058"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1058"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1069,"href":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1058\/revisions\/1069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}