About as big a job I'd take with a 12" bucket........

Fawken · Jun 12, 2015

Six hours digging, two hours talking old times, and an hour and a half to move the dirt to form a berm, install a 15" culvert and cover it with dirt. But as I said the other day this guy is a good neighbor. Trench= 60' long, 4' wide (up to the culvert) and about two-and- a half feet deep on average. Just a drainage problem, but he still needs to be able to drive into that back 40 acres:

And finally removing the hoe (for now) with the home-made, 3 jack, dolly:

CalG · Jun 12, 2015

Nice looking soil!

Fawken · Jun 12, 2015

CalG said:
Nice looking soil!

Are you kidding? We hate it. It's like concrete when dry, doesn't aireate without major work, and slick as oil when wet. Black clay or gumbo as the locals call it.

k0ua · Jun 13, 2015

We don't have soil here.. just rock shelf. Oh sure there are a few inches of good dirt on top from leaf litter over the centuries but you sure can't dig down very deep.. 12 inches max, usually a lot less.

farm boy00 · Jun 13, 2015

I like the stand idaa. Did you weld the bottle jacks to the cart or are they bolted

Fawken · Jun 13, 2015

farm boy00 said:
I like the stand idaa. Did you weld the bottle jacks to the cart or are they bolted

They're bolted. Didn't want to weld into that cheap Chinese metal (whatever it is) and didn't want to heat the seals in the jacks. 1/4" bolts, 2 per jack and there was plenty of flange on the base for two 5/16 holes. Every thing else is welded. The steel was left over from the hoe shipping crate and the wheels are from Northern tool. If the jacks settle in they don't go very far because they're a perfect fit in the channel of the frame. This works great on concrete, but for outside storage you'd need different wheels (not recommended here due to machinery theft).