I've been curious about this for a while now.
You dig a fairly decent size hole in an area that is dirt-only, and has been packed by motorized vehicles and/or foot traffic for years.
You carefully place the dirt on a piece of visqueen or plywood so as not to loose a morsel.
Yet, when you refill that very same hole, it seems there's never quite enough to fill it back entirely...shouldn't there be extra, or at least enough to bring it back to the same level as it was?
Does the dirt dry out, thus reducing the volume slightly?
Either that, or I'M drying out ever so slightly and confused removing dirt from a hole, with removing water from a hole and placing that on a sheet of plywood.
Am I missing something?