Big Stones

[Kranky 1]

One of our landscaper customers ordered 4 loads of "Gourmet Landscape Stones".

Yesterday I moved our 325 Cat hoe (the one with the hydraulic "thumb") down to the rock pile

Picked through the stone piles to find stones with "character" which would be suitable for building a retaining wall at an upscale residence on the shore of Lake Winnebago.

Brought a dump truck with a "Rock Box" down there and carefully loaded the stones up and hauled them to the customer.

This pic shows the "thumb" (that claw looking thing just above the bucket).
The thumb can be lowered towards the bucket to "grab" the stone between the bucket and the thumb and pick it up just like picking up an object between your thumb and forefinger:
http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j188/HKJr23/Trico05024.jpg

"Grabbing" a stone:
http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j188/HKJr23/Trico05021.jpg

Gotcha!:
http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j188/HKJr23/Trico05022.jpg

Carefully adding the stone to the rest of the load already on the truck:
http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j188/HKJr23/Trico05023.jpg

"Gourmet Landscaping Stones" at their destination:
http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j188/HKJr23/Trico05025.jpg

After dumping each load of stones, the landscape guy loaded the truck with fill dirt, to be dumped off at the pit.

.

[Rockjockey]

Must be nice to load your own trucks. When I hauled big rock out of the pit, they just threw them in with a wheel loader. They did tell us to get out of the truck before loading...