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["Don Bowen" <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>]

> hand diggers I dug six inch holes all around and filled them with water.
> Next day three more inches and fill them with water.  After ten days or so
> of that, just a little work each day, the holes were done.

This adobe is a little tougher.  I wet a spot and using a pick cut a small
depression then filled that with water.  I could get sometimes as much as
two inches that way but usually less.  The best time to dig is after some
rains but I did not have the correct timing nor the time to do 1200' so
power was the way to go.  Still it took two days to dig the post holes.

Right now I am just ignoring the soil.  A church was built behind here and
in the process they added 25' of flat surface to the back yard.  The fill is
soil dug from a hillside, the top layers came from the deepest part of the
excavation.  It took several weeks of pick, shovel, and hose work to lay out
approximately 300' of sprinkler line.  Some days all I could do was scrape
off maybe 2 inches.

I am building a garden over this soil but will be using a 12" high box
filled with compost and leaves and toped with some manure if I can find
some.  The developer lawsuits have driven all the diaries out and high feed
costs have moved many horse owners to sell.

Don Bowen  KI6DIU
http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/Journal.html