Manure mashing

I suspect our neighbours are somewhat puzzled about what I have been doing for most of the day. I have been in the process for a while of making a flower bed at the front of our house. It runs along beside a gravel path and is at the top of a steep slope. The first 18" or so beside the path were solid stone, gravel and sand which I have gradually been digging out. The rest is a mixture of stones and very dry peat which blows away if you try digging it when it is windy. I have put a row of large stones (mostly dug out from the vegetable patch) along the bottom to stop the meagre ammount of soil that is there all sliding down the hill.
In an attempt to increase the organic content and improve the fertility I decided to add some horse manure. This is collected from the common a couple of miles outside Stanley. The horses have all been removed from there and are now in peoples gardens in town - presumably in training for the Christmas races which are apparently the height of the social calendar. Therefore the manure is now rather sparse and very dry and hard. On trying to dig it in it just stayed in hard lumps or blew away.
The solution I came up with was to put it a sackful at a time in a dustbin, cover it with water, leave it to soak for a while and then chop and mash it up with the spade. I felt rather like an African lady busy pounding maize. The result was a nice soft mush to dig into the flower bed.
The neighbours are probably now totally convinced that I am eccentric (justifiably so). I am reminding myself more frequently of my mum - it is just the sort of thing I can imagine her doing!
Our remaining freight, which should include the polytunnel I ordered before we came here, is on the boat due in tommorrow. I have been slowly digging an area in the back garden for it. However, yesterday I hit two very big rocks and felt defeated. After digging out a lot of soil from around them I have eventually managed to loosen them but they are at the bottom of a big hole. I am now viewing it as a challenge rather than defeat but it is going to need quite a bit of extra manpower to get them out.
Maybe one of John's tasks when he comes to visit will be to create a large rock feature in the middle of our garden.