Don't laugh at me...

[STx]

can you dig down past the couple inches plus of "top hard pan" so when you bring in the bucket to you. the teeth/edge of bucket, is lifting up the hard pan, to help break the hard pan. vs trying to drag bucket through the hard pan.

i have had to due above, to get through initial few inches of hard pan, then finding a "rock layer" deeper. in the ground. and had to move back and forth till i finally able to get past the hard pan and/or rock layer. once i got past it, it was like busting up concrete, and bring bucket up under it and lifting it upwards.

Where it struggles, it's hard all the way down for the 3' I'm digging. My soil is silty loam with caliche mixed in, when it dries this much, it's like concrete. It's mostly the areas that have been driven in a lot and compacted or the areas where the solid caliche comes close to the surface.

 

[CalG]

Just like digging trench in the Phoenix area. You set the soaker over the area the day before you plan to dig.

 

[DJ54]

Sounds like a good place for a set of single point tiger teeth. I was taught many years ago, when ripping hard material, once you got to proper depth, rip/rake up across the face of the trench, basically shaving it from bottom to top. Proper angle on the bucket still yields a heaping bucket full, and makes much better backfill.

 

[CalG]

At the local fair "Horse pulls", I've seen the driver put his shoulder to the near horse flank when the strain was peaked.
I'm not sure if the driver's efforts amounted to beans, but I am sure that "Daisy" appreciated the attention.

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

Just like digging trench in the Phoenix area. You set the soaker over the area the day before you plan to dig.

Ah yes, Phoenix.

Where it takes a backhoe and dynamite to plant rose bushes.

One of the first surprises about moving up here was planting flowers at our new house only required a spade shovel. And I only had to step on the top of the spade to get it to sink all the way into the ground.

I don't miss calichee soil.

 

[STx]

It's finally raining today, not hard or non-stop; light, steadily intermittent showers. Forecast is for 1.7" between today and tomorrow, if that actually materializes, especially in light showers, the rest of the trench will be like a hit knife through butter, except for where I hit solid caliche.

 

[bcp]

Reminds me of...

"That's a really long shot. Pull the trigger as hard as you can."

Bruce

 

[TractorGuy]

I do the same with my backhoe and have been sore afterwards. I guess the pros have learned how to relax while digging and not try to muscle the controls. I need to learn how to do this!!!

ROFL! I find myself contorting my face while digging. I have to make an effort to relax while I work or I come in all worn out from doing a job that takes little to no effort. Best way I found is to turn the radio up and sing along as I work. :cool2: :dance1: :cool2:

 

[STx]

This is what I'm dealing with and this is after a little bit of rain. Between the lime from that caliche and the high calcium content, this soil gets HARD when it's dry.

Dry ground - YouTube

I do scrape up the walls as I run the trench, the top 8" or so usually comes out in a big chunk, like 16" squares, 8" thick. Below that, it's like 3"-6" clods and some of it comes out loose. Breaking that top layer up is where things bog down. The bucket keeps moving, just ever so slowly. Every now and again, it catches firm and lifts the back of the excavator off the ground, then I have to gently set myself down and try a smaller scrape it from a different angle. I've gotten 500' if trench dug in 5 hours of machine time over the last 3 days. There's about 200' more I need to get dug for this phase of the installation.