Pope Valley Burrowers

Ahhhhh. My favorite mix of tools and people. The group is small enough to be relatively easy to coordinate and supervise and big enough to make the work go quickly without anyone getting burned out. Tired? you bet, but not completely burned and fried as you can get with only one or two on a job. When I’m commuting to a site, the tendency is to push to get everything done in one day. Not wise, but easy to fall into.
As you can see from this shot of Burroworks Fossorial Mammals at work, hand tools are still primary; gloves, the favorite accessory. The posthole digger is handy for cleaning out holes, but it’s heavy. I prefer to break out the knee pads and get close up and personal with my favorite plastic scoops. One made from an old bottle decorates the stake in the center; check out the others here.
We haven’t bought any new power tools for installing burrows, just redeployed what we already had. They can ease a lot of grunt work and make the difference between too-intimidating and we-can-do-that. The little 2000 watt portable generator we use for camping quietly runs everything.
Here’s the lineup. Our plug-in half inch drill with a garden auger is the power tool we use most. We pair the auger with its extension and a lot of care. If not paying close attention, a man can go from baritone to soprano in a hurry. The picture shows Brian using it. (He’s still a baritone but there have been a few temporary conversions...) If your site has a lot of rocks or very hard soil, you might consider renting a demolition hammer. Even I can run one, and I’m not worth squat with a pick. The clay spade that you can use with it is perfect for slicing out neat channels for the tunnels. The powered wagon at the right is a real workhorse. It’s also awkward to load and takes up a lot of space in our small pickup. Usually we just bring a large garden cart and sometimes a wood cart, too. You can get a glimpse of these in action here.