We have rocks, it’s not a big deal when you get used to them, although I suppose I’d really notice the difference if suddenly all the rocks vanished. As it is, little ones like these are usually ignored, but in one small area they were dense as cobblestones, so we picked them… The method: pick ’em up, toss ’em into the Kubota compact tractor bucket, when the bucket’s full, dump it on one of the rather large rock piles. With two or more people, you can spread out and toss rocks into piles from a convenient tossing radius, and travel around with the Kubota, loading the piles into the bucket. It’s really quite straightforward. And quite quick. Of course, there’s a mechanical alternative, with various tractor-run contraptions for removing rocks in large volume. It’s all about scale, and how many hands and rocks you have!
Last spring my husband lifted the guard, put the tiller in reverse and backed up to rototill. That pulled up more big rocks in one pass than regular tilling ever brings up in three or four years. The tines threw the rocks up and out rather than pushing some back down and covering them with soil. We’ll never do that again but thanks to that one pass we now have a really nice rock fire pit by the pond.