Can you dig with a compact tractor?

An owner uses a John Deere 2038R with a 60-inch material bucket and piranha tooth bar to answer a common question: can a compact tractor actually dig? He shows roughly 45 minutes to an hour of real digging in hard clay while working on a pond/dock project, covers safety points like ROPS and digging straight downhill, and gives an honest verdict on where this setup is and isn't practical.

Posted by the Project Little Bear channel, an owner-operator sharing hands-on impressions from their own property.