Now we are digging!

Due to the overall lack of capital in a developing economy like Costa Rica, the availability of heavy equipment of any type is not very good. To get a backhoe to do some work, you have to commit to no less than 3 days, and often 1 week of work to make it worth their while.

But you don’t always need a week’s worth of work, so a lot of the work is done by hand. This makes for very efficient ditch diggers. We had one worker who was incredible. Give him a shovel and tell him to make a hole and you better get back quickly to tell him to stop or he would be in China!

But, as we have grown, so have our needs. With more than 500 acres of plantions, road and bridge repair is a pretty much yearly cost - and a sizeable one. Also, the nursery needs dirt from somewhere. We have found it quickly uses the topsoil around it - so we have to haul it in.

So, we bought a backhoe. Now, that seems like just a simple thing and it is, but the emotional impact is significant to me. I don’t know why, but I never imagined having a backhoe. A farm excavator, yes. Perhaps even a small bulldozer - sure. Of course we have a tractor. But for some reason, I am particularly proud of owning a backhoe. Maybe it´s because of the variety of things it can do.

A backhoe has been called the Swiss Army knife of construction projects, and they really are. You have the huge shovel in the front and the bucket in the back and a lot of power in between. We bought a used one, a 2003, with lots of life still in it.

One of its first jobs was take apart a bridge. This bridge was made of Corteza and Tamarindo - both of these woods are very hard, so much so they survive just fine buried in mud over streams and rivers to make bridges. Pretty incredible really. One of our bridges was damaged by a storm and needed serious repair. The problem is, the wood from these trees has gotten very expensive. So, getting a log to fix a bridge could be in the thousands of dollars - whereas five years ago it was only 300 dollars - which gives you an idea of the rise in price of this wood.

So, we got a quote from someone to make two bridges from steel and concrete (one is the replacement, the other was needed too, so might as well) and it came to 6 million colones - or about 12,000 dollars. The amount of wood that we could salvage from the old bridge was 16,000 dollars. So, by using the wood in the bridge for other things, we actually manage to make a little and have new bridges, too! Without a backhoe, it would be impossible to get out the logs, so the backhoe already is paying for itself.

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A long day in the trenches.

What is it about men and their toys? Because we are still searching for a backhoe operator, Nelson, Coco and myself decided to take on the removal of the logs from the old bridge.

Nelson had used the shovel on a tractor more than a few times and so had Coco, but neither had used the bucket on a backhoe. I had used the bucket on a backhoe briefly (like a day or so) back about 30 years ago.

So I located an instruction manual on the Internet (how to teach yourself backhoe operation) which was actually very good. I spent the previous evening reading it, and then off we went.

Amazingly, backhoes are very simple to use. The bucket/boom works very much like your arm. All you have to do is take your time and work smoothly. The biggest issue was that to remove the logs, we had to make a trench so that the logs could be slid up the riverbank. These logs are huge and weigh tons.

I spent a little time getting used to the controls and making sure I knew what I was doing.  Once I was doing well, I had Nelson take over, and to show him I placed my hands on his and manipulated the controls - in 5 minutes he had it.

Then Coco had his go at it for a while. Since by Costa Rican law I am not allowed to take work away from our employees, I had to sit by the side while they had all the fun. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t the boss…however, I figure on Sundays, it is all mine.

None of us yet have our license for running the backhoe, but you have to practice first. We have checked with MOPT (like the Department of Motor Vehicles in the USA) and they said that to get a backhoe operators license, you have to go to a lawyer and declare that you know how to operate a backhoe. We are going to go for a quantity discount.

Update, one year later: We have a good, licensed operator and have volunteered our backhoe to improve public roadways and bridges.

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