Working frozen dirt

[rjwerth]

Well, my hopes of getting my pond cleaned out before winter are quickly fading away. Even as dry as it has been (up to 2 weeks ago), the bottom of my pond is still pretty wet. And, as people know, wet clay just doesn't play nice with tractors. So, now I'm thinking my next best attempt to clean it out is going to be after the ground freezes so it firms up and can support the tractor and provide a whole lot more traction.

The question is...can I still work the soil with my box blade and/or FEL after it freezes or is that just wishful thinking?

 

[DJ54]

Depending on how cold it get's, and if there is snow to insulate the dirt, there will only be a crust. Below that will be the same thing you have now.

On a positive note... If you do get it out, and just rough it off for winter. The freeze and thaw cycle will really mellow it out, when it dries in the spring.

 

[Camdigger]

Well, my hopes of getting my pond cleaned out before winter are quickly fading away. Even as dry as it has been (up to 2 weeks ago), the bottom of my pond is still pretty wet. And, as people know, wet clay just doesn't play nice with tractors. So, now I'm thinking my next best attempt to clean it out is going to be after the ground freezes so it firms up and can support the tractor and provide a whole lot more traction.

The question is...can I still work the soil with my box blade and/or FEL after it freezes or is that just wishful thinking?

If the ground freezes very deep, you will have difficulty doing any work with it. My experience with wet clay type soil when it freezes indicates that it will polish like glass with a flat cutter blade and be almost as hard. Even 300 HP crawlers have difficulty working solidly frozen wet clay. Ripping takes muscle and can be pretty rough on shanks,etc. I vividly remember shearing off 2 rippers shanks off a D8K one night on a rush construction job. On that one, the frost was 3' down and we had only 2' cut and fill. Nasty bit of lump mashing went on there.

 

[john_bud]

I just cleaned out a "wildlife puddle". It was too wet, but using the backhoe to dig a hole / ditch to the side, the water seeped over there and the ground was dry enough to remove from the other areas.

But the ground has a bit of sand so water can run better than clay.


Here's the video of the work. Early you can see the back hoe come in and dig a small hole screen left. Then later along the edge. I was about to get stuck before that, but not after! The bottom was dropped 6' in places.

 

[RoyJackson]

Considering the OP is in southern Michigan, I expect he'll have a difficult time once the freeze commences.
There were times we had to use jackhammers to break up the frozen soil to dig sewer trenches...and this was in Maryland.

However, can't hurt to try...just don't wait too long.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Having worked in Northern Canada, I can tell you for certain that you cant dig in frozen soil with any kind of equipment. Even the moisture in pure sand will freeze and make it impossible to dig.
Pure clay is slow to dry and even when dry on top can be deadly to equipment that falls thru the crust. Very hard to retrieve the equipment from a swamp bog.

 

[D7E]

Sometimes after a very wet fall rather than make ruts we wait till beginning of freeze up and work it at -5 /-10c or so when soil is partially froze so it will carry tractors without spinning , it works very well and is very common practice . Very short working window till froze solid or snow is too deep though .

 

[cqaigy2]

Sometimes after a very wet fall rather than make ruts we wait till beginning of freeze up and work it at -5 /-10c or so when soil is partially froze so it will carry tractors without spinning , it works very well and is very common practice . Very short working window till froze solid or snow is too deep though .

I've seen this done as well, before the soil freezes hard. There is a narrow window of opportunity when the soil is more like ice cream and not sloppy. Hmmm ice cream.

 

[GolfAddict]

Here's the video of the work.

What a cool video!

 

[rjwerth]

I just cleaned out a "wildlife puddle". It was too wet, but using the backhoe to dig a hole / ditch to the side, the water seeped over there and the ground was dry enough to remove from the other areas.

But the ground has a bit of sand so water can run better than clay.

Great video! Yeah, I wish the ground had as much sand as yours does. I currently have spots on either end that are 2-6 feet deeper than the majority of the pond and I've been pumping out both sides regularly. Helps a little, but the pond is a few hundred feet long so the middle is just holding the water below the compost layer. I've been trying to save as much of this black gold as I can, but when I take a scoop, the front tires sink into the wet clay layers.

Sometimes after a very wet fall rather than make ruts we wait till beginning of freeze up and work it at -5 /-10c or so when soil is partially froze so it will carry tractors without spinning , it works very well and is very common practice . Very short working window till froze solid or snow is too deep though .

Yes, this is my thought as well. I'm hoping to get some work done when the nights get very cold but then the days are just barely above freezing. Of course, at this time of year, my day job really starts to get in the way of my digging fun.