Removing Mountains

There is a mountain in my yard.  It is the last of the big plastic toys remaining since I began replacing them with more natural, open ended items.  At one time the mountain belonged to my own – now adult – children.  The mountain is about 20 years old;

Small cars are stored in the lid of the mountain and the children occaisionally use the roads and tunnels for driving or parking the cars on.  Back when the mountain used to be an indoor toy that was all it was ever used for.  It took up a lot of space for something that had only one main purpose.  After I moved it outdoors it got used for water and gravel too.

I want to remove the mountain from the yard.  It doesn’t ‘fit’ with the rest of our play space.  We don’t need it. The children drive the cars all over the yard and even build their own roads and bridges with wood and gravel.

They use other – better – tools for moving gravel and water.  I’ve put these pipe halves in the loose parts area for that purpose and the children experiment with them often;

The pipes can accommodate not only cars, gravel, and water but animals as well;

The pipes are not stationary so can be used in various locations as levers to lift and move gravel;

Usually the children need to work together and cooperate to get the result they want;

The other day they tried an Olympic inspired weight lifting event;

Water in the pipes adds another element to expeirment with – and the results are sometimes surprisingly different than when using gravel;

We don’t need that mountain.  I just need to figure out how to remove it from the yard.  I don’t think I can put it in the recycling bin but maybe I’ll put it on the boulevard for the next give away weekend.