I am thrilled with these rocks, they are beautiful and will look fantastic in my yard :-) The largest is probably 4 feet in diameter and 2.5 feet high. Lots of large ones, just decreasing in size from there. I assume these are too heavy to transport in my full size pickup truck, even one at a time. I don't want to be horribly unsafe. I want to move about 10 of them.

I will have to pay a farmer with a huge tractor $150/hour to load them.

I will have to pay another person $225/hr to unload them.

I have to pay for transport.

Question is what is the best way to move them?
Someone suggested a flat bed trailer, but each rock would probably have to be tied down with straps, and not sure if that is really feasible. Anyone done this?

Someone suggested a dumptruck, but I'm concerned that when the driver got to my house and dumped them, they might break or crack if they tumble over each other as they get dumped. Right now many have beautiful smooth roundish surfaces, and big cracks or gouges would detract from their beauty.

I could move them one or two at a time in a small trailer we have, but the problem then is I have to pay for the loading every single time, even though it's only going to take 10 miutes. It's not efficient. But I wouldn't have to pay for an unloader then, since I could drive each one to its own spot.

Anybody have ideas? How do I get these gorgeous monsters to travel 30 miles to their new home?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and insight. I just have my heart set on these rocks now.

It can be done, but safety is the biggest concern. It is good to have help; there are 4 of us, our two teenage sons and my DH and myself; but we have loaded them with just two people, too. For the rocks pictured below, we used a car trailer capable of hauling 2000 pounds and a (now very tired) 1991 Buick Century to pull it. To load the rocks, we use chain come-alongs and basically ratchet the rock up onto the deck of the trailer. Our trailer has a bed that tilts, which makes it much easier to load them, but there have been times we couldn't tilt it due to obstructions, so in those cases, we used either very heavy planks or an I-beam for a ramp. You can wrap the rocks with burlap or other heavy protective material (old rugs) where the chains will be attached to protect them from scarring. After the rock is loaded, check the position of the rock on the trailer to see if it is centered and balanced well. We use several heavy chains to secure it to the trailer from all 4 corners and 4X4 scrap lumber to block the rock from rolling. We always carry crowbars in the trunk, too. We have trailer gates,but as you can see in the picture, the gates and the trailer have had a hard life. We have always been able to find backroads that enable us to drive slowly with minimal traffic, but I realize that's not always possible. A point to remember is your vehicle's stopping distance towing a trailer with a 1500 pound rock on will be GREATLY increased, ALWAYS err on the side of caution.

Unloading is much simpler, but still dangerous; we try to get the rocks as close to their new home as possible, stand clear and tilt the trailer bed again...but sometimes they have to be pried off. After they are on the ground, we move them with crowbars and blocks of wood. It is amazing how easily a stone can be moved this way once you get the hang of it.

So much depends on the size of your trailer, any helpers available to you and most of all whether you'd feel comfortable attempting this as it is dangerous...maybe you could hire the biggest stones loaded and hauled professionally if you're uneasy with all of the above and haul the smaller ones yourself.

Having had experience with stone delivered by dumptrucks, you're right, they will crash into each other when unloaded unless only one rock is on board at a time, but then there's the cost to consider, too.
So, safety first and whatever your decision, we wish you the best of luck with this adventure, and hope you keep us posted on the outcome! :-) Karen

I've hauled smaller rocks than the ones you described by rolling them up a 2x12 into the back of my Jeep.

I'm not sure why I'm even writing this, since Karen has TONS more experience than I do! I just know how fun it is to get new rocks in your yard. Have fun with your new rocks and post a picture when you're done, please.

If my friend only had 2 or 3 rocks I wouldn't even consider hiring loaders, etc, but since she has at least 10, it starts seeming like it might be worth it. They are in an old hedgerow, plucked from the fields decades ago, so it appears that most of them are not buried, but on top of the dirt. (never can be sure though :-) She lives right next door to a quarry (to give you an idea of the number of rocks she has) so if the farmer can't move the rocks, we can hire a guy from the quarry to come right next door.

By coincidence yesterday I struck up a conversation in the grocery store with a guy who turned out to be a truck driver with a flat bed trailer. I discussed with him and he said no problem to move granite stones on a flat bed. He said the straps he uses are rated for 6000 pounds and are very doable. He even agreed to do the job for $150, even though it will wind up being a few hours for him, with loading, unloading, driving etc. What a stroke of luck, no?

Now I need to line up a huge loader on this end. Then get the rocks more cleared, because saplings, bushes, brush, etc. cover them now. Probably do one pass with a tractor to get everything out and lined up. Then another day to get everything done.

Now I've got to get up the nerve to do it. (smile) I've never done a big project like this, but those rocks are calling me. I even dreamed about it all night last night. My mind is stuck on this. I know exactly where they will go, and I think it will look great! But I'm running out of time. We usually get snow in mid to late November, and the weather gets nasty. The rocks have to be taken in late fall after harvest, because the rest of the year the fields are planted in corn and the rocks aren't accessible.

Thanks for the encouragement, not everybody is crazy for rocks. When I talk about it here, most people just look at me strangely to think I want them. Makes me wonder if my design taste is really ok, or whether I'm fooling myself. Thank goodness for this forum, for like minded stone lovers.

The truck is lined up for next Saturday. I wouldn't have made it such a production for one or two rocks. But since it's 10 or more, it seems better to leave the lifting and driving to professionals, since I think I got rather reasonable estimates. I'm sure I'll be back later for smaller ones, one-at-a-time.

I'm still lining up the unloading. A neighbor with a tractor and bucket says he can get them off the flat bed truck, but suggests not putting them in place until next spring, to save the lawn. We've had just enough rain to make the ground soft. I need to get them out of the field now, in the fall, because the farmer will have the field planted in corn next year and they will be inaccessible.

I'll take photos, and when it's all done (fingers crossed!) I'll post them. Wish me luck!

Last week I went to my friends house and Farmer Ed used his loader to pull the rocks from the woodsline. I was worried because I thought he had a farm tractor, but it was a heavy duty loader and it treated the boulders like they were bowling balls. Once he got them all out of the hedgerow, there were a few more than I thought - 26! Probably 5 or 6 BIG (bathtub sized) 12 Medium (32 inch TV) and the rest Small (microwave sized). Seeing how easily he handled these rocks was very reassuring, so I made arrangements for the loader, truck driver, and unloader for the following week.

The weather was terrible here all week. We had a tremendous windstorm with gusts up to 65 mph that uprooted a few of my newly planted trees. Then we had a very heavy rainstorm. Then a spell of our first "winter weather" - 40 degrees, crisp, biting wind. But Saturday dawned warm and sunny and still, a great day for moving rocks.

Farmer Ed and his son both arrived with loaders. For some of the big rocks, one loader would push the boulders into the other loader. You could see that the smaller one would not have been able to lift the heaviest of the rocks. They were quite skilled at what they did, I took my four year old son to watch and he loved it.

Mike the truck driver was great. Acted as if he did this every week. He said he had hauled some very unusual things in his time, and raw boulders was another on the list. He took longer to tie everything down than it took to load. He was very thorough and professional. Made a phone call as we were leaving so Dick the backhoe driver would be there when we arrived.

Dick and Brian were waiting when we arrived. Just immediately drove up in the backhoe and started tugging them off and they rolled away. It was slow and steady work, but happily was done without incident.

Just like that! Wow! Now we still have the work of moving them from behind the barn to be placed in the backyard, but that seems a lot more doable than having them magically move 30 miles south. With the fall rain we've had the ground is rather soft for heavy equipment. We'll move them next summer. So watch for another post then asking how to move them into position. But for now I am quite happy!

I'm sure enquiring minds want to know, how much did it all cost? Things improved from my initial conservative estimates. The $150/hour was for a quarry loader, which we didn't need because the farmer's loader was one of those BIGGGG ones. Farmer Ed did me a huge favor and did all the loading for $150 plus various baked goods and bottles of wine. Really he was being nice to my friend who owns// owned the rocks. Truck driver Mike was very professional and very reasonable, I thought, for $250 since it took his entire afternoon. Dick would only take $100 for his work since "it didn't take him very long" and he lives just around the corner. So total transport cost was $500 for 25 very nice sized granite rocks. $500 isn't a small sum of money, we've just blown the landscape budget for 2006, but at $20 rock it seems fantastic to me when I think how much work was done. I'm still working on getting a very nice something for my friend too, who was so fabulously generous with her stones.

What a long winded post, as you can tell, I'm excited. Here's some photos, I've never done photos before so we'll see how they work.

Rob

As far as the cost goes, Laura is right; $500 is exceptionally reasonable for the type of work you had done and the amount of people involved. This was definitely a bargain. I know people who don't like rocks cannot understand:
1. Why you would want rocks in the first place
2. Why you would pay money for them
(we have had many strange looks over the years, rest assured!)
However, I'll bet they will understand when the garden is completed and they see the end result. Thanks for keeping us posted on what's going on and for your wonderful pictures. It's going to be REALLY hard to wait until spring now, isn't it? ;-) Karen

So you may want to mention forks instead of a bucket they are much easier to get the rocks on.

I'd like to know where I can get my hands on some of that plastic. I've been thinking myself that if I could just have a big sled, I could drag these rocks across the snow in the winter and they would cause a lot less damage to the grass and be a lot easier. Need to do some more research on moving the rocks into place . . .

Here are some pics of my kids enjoying the rocks. They are happy with them already. Probably be too wet in spring to move, I'll have to wait until summer.

Never can have enough rocks..

Good look
Curt

Congratulations! You are going to have a fun time placing those rocks.

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