Wondering if anyone has any tricks for working with wet clay? I dug it about a week and a half ago and am now using it to build some jumps on my MX track. It's like modeling clay and just squishes out when trying to pack it. Do I just have to rough shape things and let it dry for awhile? The weather's going to be cooling off pretty soon but I want to do things now instead of waiting till next summer.
It sucks to work with but if left alone it will be like concrete when dry. Depending on content, clay soil will dry quite quickly.
I have a lot of clay at home. What you said is about what I have found works best. Dig it out, pile it up, and let it dry for a bit (in the summer, that can be just a few hours). When it is mostly dry, you can do about anything with it, but when it gets too dry it is very hard to break apart and tends to clump up and be hard to work with. Around here, limestone screenings are cheap and you can mix it in with the clay to get something more like fill dirt. You might not want that in a MX track though.