"
Suggestions? The good thing is that the soil in the woods is
diggable. The soil in front of my house is dense red clay and I need
a pick axe to dig a hole if it is dry and it sucks my shoes off my
feet if it is wet!

is the soil in the woods truly different? or was it just not stomped
down?

undisturbed vegetation, with leaf drop, seems to create a nice loose top
layer.

It's a new subdivision. Location is hilly and they pretty well
blasted/scraped up much of the topsoil in addition to stomping it down when
they put in the roads and houses. They weren't too careful about where,
exactly, they put gravel in preparation for foundations and driveways
either. I really could make bricks out of the red clay in my front yard

The area up the hill from us now has a dirt road about 4-6 ft below what was
the natural ground level in preparation for more houses. I really don't
know why unless the grade of the hill was too steep.

The backyard is forest except in the easement where the sewer line now runs,
and a ditch for rain run off. Not only leaf drop back there, but well
decayed tree drops as well. Found huge wood boring beetles tunneling thru
the old wood. The soil is loose and dark in the top foot or so in the
backyard, then turns to red clay as well. At least the developer left us
some trees. There was some wonderful hilly wooded land *totally* bulldozed
for a subdivision about a mile from here.