Myhusband gave a smart-alecky but honest answer. Use the bucket to fluff up the soil afterward. I asked about using a bigger excavator with longer reach but he explained it would be a much heavier machine. He's been doing stump and rock removal at our place. If the compaction is so bad, perhaps you need to add a lot more things like chopped leaves, grass clippings, peat moss - whatever is available so it decomposes over the winter. Good luck. I bet it's going to be worth it once you are done.

I would think that it would call for a professional or a contractor job. Depending on the ordnances and laws of your city or state, you could drill into the boulder, and set off charges to break it apart. Although buying explosive charges today might not be easy.

I don't know if there is anyone in your area that works with steers, but a yoked pair of steers has incredible pulling power. Decide ahead of time where you want the boulders and they can haul them there. At agricultural fair around here they have pulling contests, so a RI or MA ag fair might be a good place to find someone with steers.

Also consider leaving a few boulders in strategic places. They make really nice accents in parts of the yard, and within a garden. You can create little micro-climates along the south side of a sunny clump of rocks. They hold heat and offer protection from wind. And rocks are effective at foiling voles.

If they were easier to move, I would put some in my gardens! I have a few small boulders here and there, and use tons of flat stepping stones throughout the gardens, a few are nearly 2 feet across.

My sister and BIL left a few when they excavated a large area of their property when they lived in NH years ago. One big boulder even had kind of a depression in the middle of the top of it. It used to collect water when it rained, and the birds used it as an unintentional bird bath.