{"id":1135,"date":"2013-05-03T16:24:02","date_gmt":"2013-05-03T16:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/?p=1135"},"modified":"2013-05-03T16:24:02","modified_gmt":"2013-05-03T16:24:02","slug":"and-then-i-moved-a-mountain-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/?p=1135","title":{"rendered":"And then I moved a mountain AGAIN"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Because apparently jumping up and down on it will not settle it enough and it will settle over time to HALF its current depth if we don&#8217;t get a vibrating plate compactor thing. So I rang the hire place and booked one, which, luckily, wasn&#8217;t very expensive and we get it for two days instead of one if we have it over Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, I piled MORE AND MORE soil on it and it&#8217;s now a bit higher than it needs to be, but if Elmo&#8217;s right, I&#8217;ll be spending all day tomorrow doing the same again after the compactor settles it to almost nothing. But I guess it&#8217;s better than having to do it all again in a couple of years.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1138\" title=\"PICT0004\" src=\"http:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/PICT0004.jpg\" alt=\"the raised ground and missing water tank\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/PICT0004.jpg 640w, https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/PICT0004-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The observant among you may notice the lack of a water tank. Yes, I finally emptied it and rolled it (like a giant die) to the bottom of the long sheds, where hopefully it will go on collecting water.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1137\" title=\"PICT0002\" src=\"http:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/PICT0002.jpg\" alt=\"the water feature\" width=\"640\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/PICT0002.jpg 640w, https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/PICT0002-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I started out by filling buckets and dumping them in the (still unfilled) trench, but Elmo, ever the efficiency engineer, concocted a plan to use the lengths of old drainpipe and gutter to form a chute to the ditch. It worked perfectly and actually made a lovely noise. And effortlessly emptied all the water in about 10 minutes.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1136\" title=\"PICT0003\" src=\"http:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/PICT0003.jpg\" alt=\"us on our new bench\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/PICT0003.jpg 640w, https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/PICT0003-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Happily, inbetween bouts of digging, I was able to sit down on our newly acquired two-seat plus table bench thingie, given to us by Jim and Arlene (Harry and Peggy&#8217;s Daughter and Son-in-law) when they were tidying up the cottage for (hopefully) sale this spring.<\/p>\n<p>May we both get lucky and sell our beautiful, if possibly a bit &#8220;niche&#8221;, cottages!<\/p>\n<p>Our tenants have just told us that they&#8217;re moving out, so we will have to hope we can find another tenant willing to take the place on a month-to-month contract. Bit of a sigh, but we&#8217;ve been lucky to have people taking good care of the place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Because apparently jumping up and down on it will not settle it enough and it will settle over time to HALF its current depth if we don&#8217;t get a vibrating plate compactor thing. So I rang the hire place and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/?p=1135\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/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\/1135"}],"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=1135"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1139,"href":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135\/revisions\/1139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}