Tractors in the suburbs vs acreage

[tractchores]

Definitely dangerous too work around peope not used to manuall work or machinery. I know in everything I do I'm thinking about pinch points and the 'worst case scenario' before and even while doing something. Its saved me a bunch. I always get very nervous operating in a tight area or an area where there may be others who are not familiar with tractors. I'm always extra careful to tape off areas, use construction cones or even barriers to make sure cars or people don't creep up on me while working. Its all too easy to swing into someone who isn't paying attention and creeps into the work area.

 

[Sprinklerman]

It seems like someone always wants to walk up to you from a blind spot , or at the worst possible moment.

 

[Marveltone]

I'm a fairly new acreage owner. We live on my wife's family homestead, or at least the 120 acres that are left. We rent out roughly 60 acres to a local commercial farmer, leave about 40 acres of woods and swamp basically untouched for hunting land, and the remaining 20 are the buildings, pastures, and my playground.

We like it!

 

[k0ua]

I'm a fairly new acreage owner. We live on my wife's family homestead, or at least the 120 acres that are left. We rent out roughly 60 acres to a local commercial farmer, leave about 40 acres of woods and swamp basically untouched for hunting land, and the remaining 20 are the buildings, pastures, and my playground.

We like it!

Sounds nice Joe, but I bet it is cold up there now!

I have about 7 acres, but can only tractor on maybe 2 1/2 or so. The rest is too steep and heavily wooded. I still find plenty to do with a tractor, and mine is pretty good size.

 

[Marveltone]

Sounds nice Joe, but I bet it is cold up there now!

I have about 7 acres, but can only tractor on maybe 2 1/2 or so. The rest is too steep and heavily wooded. I still find plenty to do with a tractor, and mine is pretty good size.

We've been having our fair share of -15 to -25 the last couple of weeks. This time of year, the tractor is a bear to start, but it's just relegated to snow removal and hauling firewood on the warmer days. On the colder days, I don't even bother trying to start it, as it's just too cold to be outside at all.

 

[k0ua]

We've been having our fair share of -15 to -25 the last couple of weeks. This time of year, the tractor is a bear to start, but it's just relegated to snow removal and hauling firewood on the warmer days. On the colder days, I don't even bother trying to start it, as it's just too cold to be outside at all.

I think I have seen -17 here once. We are all pretty shut down when that happens. Most people just try to stay warm, and keep the pipes from freezing. We can't really handle much of those kind of temps. We have seen some single digits near zero here this week, but it has warmed back up a bit now.

 

[BTDT2]

I live on 1/2 acre lakeside lot within the city limits. Lake has 1300 miles of shoreline and upstream flooding sometimes brings down lots of debris. Finally got tired of sawing and cutting debris and now use L4240 with grapple to pile and burn the stuff. Also do community service with tractor such as cleaning other peoples beaches and cutting 3 acres of grass at nearby field owned by local government.

 

[MitchellB]

We only had about an acre lot in the beginning, and half of that was wooded with large gullies across the back portion. We started off with a little 17hp Lowes lawn and garden tractor in 1991 that mowed and kept the driveways level with a tiny 3 ft. scrape blade.



However I soon realized I needed a little more machine and on my father in laws advice (he has 7 acres in county with small fish pond), purchase an 8N Ford tractor in 1998 that was well within our budget and a huge help clearing trails, landscaping and keeping the driveways maintained. Then we purchased another house on about an acre that turned us into landlords for the first time (after an extensive remodel of the house). A couple of years ago we purchase a third house to rent out and a 4th empty lot that adjoins our home giving us an additional 1 1/2 acres that needed extensive landscaping and a remodel of the house before it was ready to rent.



The little 8N Ford was a big help, but I realized it just was not up to some of the heavier work I wanted to do and began a search for a bigger tractor and purchased an old 861D Ford last year to takes it's place. (8N is now for sale). All together we have about 3 1/2 acres now. Aside from landscape projects, occasional snow removal, occasional tree/brush removal, small gardening, the biggest two chores are mowing and maintaining about a 1000 feet of gravel and dirt driveways and trail.



Although we live inside the city limits, we have a large abundance of wildlife like groundhogs, hawks, owls, foxes, raccoon and opossums around us in the many wooded unused tracts. Last week the renter claims to have seen a small group of deer moving across our new field that is on my planning board to cultivate this spring for the first time. I am pondering planting a food plot for them now also, but they will probably just eat my garden up instead.

 

[Poopdeck Pappy]

I live on an acre outside of town (sort of in the country), and I own a 2.5 acre lot across the street that I intend to eventually build a home on. And I own 30 acres of land about 10 minutes away.

Before I bought the 30 acres, I just had a John Deere GT235e garden tractor. Now I have a Kioti DK50SE and a Kubota BX23TLB that I use on the 30 acres. And I still have the GT235 for mowing the 2.5 acres, but I'm thinking about getting either a Kubota BX or a ZTR for mowing it.