moving a mountain

I have several long term projects here.  One of them is moving the slope that is, or was immediately up hill of our house.  It seemed to me to serve the undesirable purpose of funneling all the rain water and moisture right to our foundation, thus making the kitchen and bedroom's poured concrete floors always full of moisture.  So I have been moving it away.
The thing about this place is that there is plenty of material here, it just has to be gotten at and sorted.  While digging I sift the dirt thru a screen, thus getting clean dirt, free of large stones, for the gardens, and rock for building walls and foundations and steps.

this slope used to run right into the back of the house.

 The work is, or could be hard labor, but the way I do it makes it just comfortable and pleasant.  I use only human powered tools.  A machine could come in and do the job in a day, but working that quickly keeps me from seeing what the affects of my work will be.  I know what is in the earth, bugs, worms, the different types of soil and root systems and rocks because I shovel every bit of it myself and actually run my hands thru most of it as I screen it and sort the rocks and organic matter out.
I get a little bit of exercise doing this work.  I don't try and do it all at once or more than my body can deal with in a day, or part of a day.  Since I started back at this work as the winter has passed I can already feel myself getting stronger from the work and activity.  I only work on this a few hours a day and it becomes good and meditative time touching and smelling the earth.
Seeing the progress made over time is deeply satisfying.  I didn't "buy" it, I did the work with my own 2 hands, and my energy.  I try and use the natural progressions of erosion to help me.  I let a winter season of freezing and thawing and the rains to help break up and move some of the earth for me, then I just collect it.

after the winter indoors our oranges are getting orange.

It is almost time for the orange to move back out of doors and get some good sunlight and rain.