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Thursday, October 4, 2012

PLAYING IN THE DIRT

When I was a kid, like most young boys, I had a collection of tractors, dump trucks, bulldozers, and other assorted Tonka Toys.  In those simpler days, I can remember pushing around my fleet of miniature heavy equipment, building everything from dirt dams, to dirt bridges.


Flash forward a half dozen  decades, and I'm still digging in the dirt, albeit with a much larger toy.  Now in the real scheme of things, this Kubota tractor/backhoe is considered a "compact"  machine, about half the size of a Cat, Case, or John Deere full size backhoe.  Often, bigger is better, especially when it comes to the right size of equipment to adequately do the job.  So, yesterday, as I tackled the task of removing some small trees from the approach to the new garage, I wondered if I had the right machine.  It didn't take long to make that determination, as the backhoe quickly pulled up the largest of the Palo Verde trees, and several other smaller desert bushes.


Things that grow here in the desert don't have deep root systems.  In order to capture as much moisture as possible, the roots are shallow, and spread out to a wide area.  When I got the backhoe under the first tree, and started to lift it out of the ground, I was amazed at how far out the roots extended.

The next four pictures are more or less the before, and the last two are the after.  When I finished for the day, I had a pretty good pile of brush and tree trunks, that I'll have to deal with later.

Today, I have two things arriving here on the property.  The new black refrigerator that I purchased last week from Lowes, will be here this morning.  The second new arrival is approx. 20,000 pounds of fill dirt, that will be used mostly in the area adjacent to where the motor home is parked.  With the extra dirt, I should be able to create a much larger flat area next to the north side of the house.



 Before













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