A Rocky Surprize

 In the digging process, we never know what we may run into. The soil here is mainly glacial till subsoil with a topsoil overburden and all of it is rocky from pea sized stones to huge bolders. Since the soil is permeable it is susceptible to frost heaving or pushing up of any rocks by the spring frost. Hence if we ever detected even the tip of a rock we would remove it, but the size would be unknown and a surprize. In this photo a good sized and well lodged rock surfaced and took some major effort to remove. Pry-bars were basically ineffective.

Finally we dug around the rock and wrapped a chain around it and with the ATV were able to pull it out.

Clay and sand are not permeable soils thus they are not susceptible to frost heaving, and are preferred soils to use under structures. The holes created by the rocks here were back filled with sand and tamped down.