Moving Dirt

[EddieWalker]

What's "ledge?" I've never heard the term used for anything other than the side of a cliff.

Eddie

 

[mike69440]

On average, if you dig down less than 5-6' in New Hampshire, you hit ledge. Some parts of the state the ledge is bare exposed Rock. Other parts the rock is very deep from 10,000 years of erosion and is covered with till. The Ice Age glaciers ripped the loose rock and topsoil off mountains, down to solid ledge. I am sitting on a 600 to 900 ft thick piece of granite. I will be spending over $10,000 to harvest a 50' X120' X 8' deep piece of rock to be blasted into useable sized chunks to furnish 1000 to 1200 Cu Yds of road building material.

Also left over will be a lot of "Landscaping rocks"

 

[EddieWalker]

It sure is different there than here. So far I've found one rock too big for me to pick up by hand. I have something called iron ore that is like crumbly concrete with small rocks in it. Lots of small pebbles and the ocasional rock that might be fist sized. I think I've come across half a dozen that big in four years!!! Mostly it's all clay. Red clay on top, then it's changes colors depending on what part of my land your on. The trees tell the story the best. Pine trees are where the grey clay is under the red clay. The oaks and broadleaf trees are where you find yellow clay under the red clay. In the creek botoms and flood plane, you find brown clay under the red stuff. Did I mention there is lots of red clay here? hahahaha

Thanks for the explination. If I had rock, or "ledge" to deal with, I don't think I could do very much with the land. It would be just too much effort and expense. Clay is nice because it digs real easy, but compacts just as easy and holds it shape really good. If I build up the land for a road, it stays there.

The Army built up those shooting positions for the rifle range in 1942. The biggest one is still there in almost perfect condition. It's 600 feet long, 20 feet wide across the top and at one point, it's 45 feet in the air. After 64 years of all sorts of weather, tropical storms and hurricanes, there is almost no evidence of erosion!!! I love clay. hahahaha

Eddie

 

[3RRL]

Eddie,
Very interesting. That's got to be a great feeling to have Mom and Steph and the kids out there when you are working. That red dirt and those green trees make for a beautiful contrast. Great photos man....life is good.

 

[jinman]

Eddie, how did you get that pile of dirt so high? It seems to be much higher than your loader's bucket. Did you push up the pile with the dozer?

 

[Dargo]

When I dug my lake, about 2 acres, I had to excavate and move about 23,000 cubic yards of dirt. I just had a low spot and a natural spring that kept that spot wet year round so I decided to quit fighting it and just put in a lake. Anyway, building my lake really just consisted of digging a huge 2 acre hole in the ground; except for the island my wife wanted. My deepest point is 21', and I have an average depth of 6.5'; so I have relatively steep sides to prevent weed growth.

The first dump truck I had was an old single axle with a 5.5 yard bed on it. It was a '67 chevy with a 327ci engine in it. Man, it was honestly a beast! With a heaping load on it I could easily spin the tires backing up the hill to dump! I flat wore it out, painted it with a roller and some Rural King equipment paint and got every dollar back out of it due to it's strong running engine. It only had 12k miles on it when I bought it at an auction from an estate of a farmer who'd died. I replaced it with a newer tandem axle dump with a 11 yard bed on it. It was nicer for being able to haul more, but it did not have near the power and would not back up some of the hills with a load.

I also put over 2000 hours on a Cat 955 high lift in the 3 years I worked on the lake. I had several issues I had to repair myself; usually as it sat in 6" of water in the bottom of the lake. You know, like having to drop the belly pan to get to the front hydraulic pump etc. Anyway, I only got it stuck once, and that sucked, when I was digging the lake. I ended up renting a JD 790 excavator and an additional tandem axle truck for 2 weeks and hiring my dad and brother in law to drive them to finish my lake and get the depth I wanted. Other than that 2 week time period, I was the sole worker on the project. I suppose that is why it took me 3 years working after work.

How big is your lake going to be? From your pics it appears as if your lake will be larger but not as deep? It must be nice digging in dry soil and not wet clay being constantly fed by a spring. I'm jealous!

 

[have_blue]

When I dug my lake, about 2 acres, I had to excavate and move about 23,000 cubic yards of dirt. ... I suppose that is why it took me 3 years working after work.

Sounds like my situation. I've been working on my 1.5a pond for 4 years. My dirt gets so hard that the dozer blade (JD650H) won't even cut it. All it does is shine it up. Oh well, I just got 7" of rain, so I can dig easily again.

 

[EddieWalker]

Rob,

Thanks. It was a nice suprise to see my Mom up on the hill playing with the kids. She's in her 60's now and likes to pretend she's an old woman, but then she pulls a stunt like this and climbs up there for several hours and her complaints about her age sort of disapear. hahahaha

Jim,

My Dad just loves to run the dozer, unfortunatly, his skills with a blade limit what I'll let him do. Knocking over trees or digging dirt piles are two projects well whithin his comfort range. This mound of dirt was 600 feet long, but only about ten feet tall. There was some evidience of others in the past taking some of it, but that had to be around 20 years ago by the age of the trees that had grown over it. While I was hauling dirt out of my lake with the dump truck and TLB, I had my dad take out those trees with the dozer. We seperate them into piles depending on there usefullness, value and east of burning. Once that was done, he started digging and building up the pile with the dozer. Sorry, but I didn't get any pictures of it. He didn't finish and there's still a pretty good amount of dirt still to move, so maybe when Ron gets here, I'll see if he wants to run the dozer and move some dirt!!!!

Dargo,

I never realized you spent three years building your lake. I don rembember some of your posts about breaking down and having to work on it while in the water and how cold it was out. In fact, that's one of the thoughts that always run through my mind when I hit a wet spot and have that instant panic attack that I really screwed up, just before I break free. I've been stuck one time with the dozer and hope to never, ever repeat the experience.

I never calculated how much dirt I moved on my lake since most of it was with the dozer. Back and forth with the dozer as I dug it and built up the dam. The dam is over 900 feet long and much wider than it needs to be. For me, it was important for the dam to look as natural as possible with gently slopes and sort of wander along the waters edge.

My surface area calculated to 4.3 acres with a max depth of 12 feet with the rest of it at 8 feet except for a few shallow areas I put in for plants to grow and fish to spawn.

This project is related to the lake as it will be part of a funnel I'm createing by clearing a pasture and changing the slope and drainage. The dirt pile was a large berm the army built that went across where my pasture is. It also sent water off to the side of my land and away from where I can use the run off to add water to my lake.

Bob,

The first dozer I had out here was a JD450 G that I'd run for a local contractor. He mostly does house pads and private road repairs, so the small dozer is handy for it's ease of getting around to job sites. It was also totally useless for land clearing and digging in clay. It was too light and underpowered to break the surface of hard clay and could only smooth out alread dug material. I did just like you described with it. Push the blade down and slide along the top of the surface leaving a nice shiny trail behind me without digging out any dirt. Even when tilting the blade, the corners would catch and spin it on it's tracks before doing any digging.

When I decided to buy a dozer, I wanted one with over 100 hp as I figures that would be large enough to do what I wanted. Of course, like I'm sure you know, to find one in half decent shape will cost allot of money. I kept looking at bigger and bigger machines that were older and older until I came across the one I bought. At 40,000 pounds and 168 hp, it's got enough size to do what I want it to. I still have problems digging on occasion and have to really take a much smaller cut, or hit the ground from a differnt angle or direction to get a particularlly hard spot. My Dad had this happen while digging out the dirt pile in this thread. He doesn't have the patience or ability to finese the blade, so he gave up and used the backhoe to break up that really hard area.

I've seen pictures you've posted of your dozer and would just love to operate something that nice. It must be a dream to have a cab on it to be comfortable, and know that it wont' break down on you at least once a week. hahaha

7 inches is about what I got all summer. We received 1 1/2 inches from that storm over the weekend, but could see on the radar how heavy it was for you guys. You must have been dead center in the middle of that one!!!!

Luckily that storm was enough for the county to lift the burn ban, so now I'll be able to start burning some of those trees in the pictures, plus my other burn piles.

Eddie

 

[Tim_in_IA]

Eddie that picture with the kids sliding down the pile is worth 1000 words! Oh and you have a headlight out on the truck

 

[have_blue]

Rob,
across the one I bought. At 40,000 pounds and 168 hp, it's got enough size to do what I want it to.

Hey Eddie,

Man, I would LOVE to sit on a big dozer like yours! The little JD is 21,000 pounds and 90hp. I thought the short blade (104") would be great for digging the hard baked stuff, but no go! If I start a groove and get down past the crust, I can really move some dirt. But because the pond is a hole in the ground, I have to keep it sloped so I can keep it pumped out.

That's some beautiful red dirt. Mine is sort of uh, calico. If I had a sheer vertical face of dirt that high, it would surely collapse!