Hope this will help anyone who would like to have a lawn where there is now a rock bar. A year ago in early september I purchased a 2 acre lot. I added a house and all the other things to make it through the winter. Boy It looked great with the fresh fallen swow on the ground. Then came spring, Wow! I realized there wasn't a square inch in the 1.5 acres where I wanted that big lawn that did't have rocks, not just little rocks, I'm talking big inplanted beginning of time rocks. Yea I can joke about it now I'm almost done. Anyone just starting, here are a few things I learned. Keep in mind I was determined to do as much work as possable with a Massey 1010 4wd 16hp, a 6'rock rake,a dirt scoop and a small dump cart. Without hireing out the work or renting another piece of equippment. And with a minimum of purchased top soil. This is the best way I have found to do it. First if you want to just rip out the rocks and maybe do a bit of leveling, you need a day when your soil is very damp. If you want to windrow your rocks for removal, then you need a dry day so your rake will just get what is loose and won't windrow much soil with your rocks. I start with a damp day and rip rocks, It takes time, you need to go slow for the rake to work properly. Start very slow and increase speed until you see the rake starting to do alot of jumping over rocks. There is a point where the rake is moving too fast to get a good bite on the rocks. There will always be a few that the rake will jump but by trying different speeds and angles on your top link you will find what works best. Be sure your rake is level from side to side. when windrowing the rocks for removal I just drive round and round in a big circle with the rake angled to push the rocks toward the center of the circle. Don't try to put too many rocks in one row, when the row starts to fill with soil I go inside of that row and start another. Be sure to leave room so you aren't running into the first row and so on. Once I have them raked up I drive up and down the rows and load them onto the dirt scoop or dump cart. The scoop works better for the big ones because you can just back under them or roll them on. If you have a loader that would be easier. Yes I load them by hand, remember I want to save the soil. I'll admit when I started I did have a fella with a backhoe and a dump truck haul away 14 loads of 80-90%rock the rest soil. but thay were all raked into piles. All this takes time and some were loosened with a 6' pry bar, Don't know exactly how many rocks I have removed, but I friend hauled several ton for his house and I now have a 200'long 3' high rock fence but I know when I'm done It will look great. Hope this helps someone with the same problem.
Take Care..Dav.
Take Care..Dav.
