Moving Fy Nyth

So when's the last time someone said, "we're ready to move now" and you had your whole house packed up and moved in an hour? I mean, moved the whole house, not just your stuff obviously. It's kinda cool to be able to do that! Fy Nyth moved up the hill to be in a slightly larger clearing, near the garden, and a little more secluded. This process, despite the speed of the actual move, took a good bit of work.

First many many many tractor buckets of rock were dumped into the little lane leading up there to make it wide enough to hold the house's wheel base. This rock was first acquired by prying it out of the ground that is now my garden. Everything from large pebbles to 200+ pound boulders. Then many many many loads of smaller rocks were added. And then many many many loads of dirt. Finally some trees were removed from the edges to further widen the surface. 

After all of this, I packed my house as you can see above. Moved all the glass stuff off of shelves, set plants down, taped drawers and doors shut, and generally set anything heavy down on the floor.

When we took her off the jacks and moved a few feet, we realized Fy Nyth had developed a flat over the winter. This was remedied after multiple trips to retrieve an air compressor and then find a generator that was large enough to run it.

Finally she was headed up the hill. It is steeper than it looks, I promise. And the dirt/new road surface was probably a bit too damp and soft still. My house is heavy, over 10,000 pounds dry, and probably more like 15,000 with all my stuff inside. 

So she decided to stop right here. Too much weight, sinking into the ground far enough to cause a lot of resistance to being pulled. I was having visions of having to live in a house at a slant forever. Thankfully my friend had the foresight to think that this might happen and already had a second tractor parked at the top. With one tractor towing the other, she started to move again. There are no photos of this as I was driving that second tractor, but let's just say they were both working hard.

When she finally crested the hill, I started to breath again. I hadn't even realized I was holding my breath. And at least ten minutes later I was still shaking a bit. Have you ever wondered if your house was going to tip over sideways and fall down a hill? It's kinda not cool to be able to do that. And thankfully that is not how this ended!

We moved her into her new home on the ridge and the only casualty she suffered was breaking a tail light. It hit the ground on that corner as she headed up hill. This is no big deal, especially as she should be staying right here for a very long time now so no tail lights will be needed.

Here you can see just how close the tires were to the edge of that lane. And the right hand track is at least two full feet past where the lane edge had existed earlier in the day. It also gives you some idea of how much her weight sank into the dirt.

But she did make it to her new home safe and sound and it is an even lovelier location that where I lived all winter!