My Ugly Backyard: Step 1 - Removing the Dirt from the Stone
My crater is a mix of sand and stone dirt which I am gradually separating.
A little while ago I wrote about my ugly backyard with the large crater in it and how I was hoping to remedy the ugliness this summer. The crater is a large ring of overgrown stone and dirt around a pit of sand. I have several option for how I can fix this mess:
- I could hire a contractor to come in with a Bobcat and dig it all out. That would cost about $1,500 and I have yet to find a contactor that wants to haul the sand and stone away. They all want to bury the stone in a large hole. I don’t think that’s a very good method.
- I could simply dump dirt over the crater, but there is too much sand and stone there at the moment, so in a few years my crater would probably be visible again.
- I could dig it out myself, sifting the stone out and using it elsewhere. This is the cheapest method by far.
I, of course, chose option #3. I’m going to dig out the sand and stone and sift out the dirt. In the end I’ll have a large pile of stone, a large pile of sand, and large hole that’s mostly sandy dirt. I then plan to till over the entire lumpy yard, including the dirt pit, and then even it all out before I plant some grass. I may or may not have to put down a load of topsoil, as well.
So far it’s been going fairly well. The photo above shows a patch of dirt where I’ve dug up the stone, dumped it into a box screener I made and then sifted out the stone from the dirt.
It’s hard work and slow going, but I still have plenty of time and I really need the exercise, so I’m sticking with it for the moment.
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[…] Backyard Cleanup - I wrote about my ugly backyard cleanup and how I was manually digging the stone and sand from the dirt and then using a stone sifter I made to keep some soil in place. What I didn’t realize was the sheer amount of stone there was in certain parts of the yard. I apparently started out on the shallow end of the circle where the stone was only about six inches deep in most places. As I approached the other side in July I found that in some areas the stone was a good 12 inches deep… or more. It was at about that point that I also realized that I would have a pile of stone about 12 feet high in my backyard when all was said and done. I admit it: I was beaten. I called in a professional. I’ll post details in a while. […]
Comment by Digging Conscience
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