Advice on new barn construction needed

[daugen]

rainy day but in a dry spot I cleaned off the new shed floor and just couldn't help myself, had to roll something in there...
Ultimately the tractor finish mower will be over to the left and the rear blade and rake in front on the right.
I'm hoping to fully enclose one of the barn shed roofs so I'll have a cleaner spot to park the garden tractors, but for now, the Gravely want aaahhhhh as it
sat on nice clean concrete instead of wet earth.

I knew it would not last but to keep the current rains away from the slab, I did dump some 57's on half the mud. Seemed to work to keep the pooling water closer to the water diversion ditch, which was the whole idea. The place is way too wet for any more stone to be delivered so this is likely what I'll have until we get a week of dry weather.

 

[aczlan]

If you want that tow behind blower to be easier to use with the RTV, you could mount it on the front of the RTV (with the wheels off of the ground). When I worked for a lawn care business, we had a golf cart with a front 2" receiver that we used with a similar blower mounted to the front hitch.
Made it a lot easier to use the blower without flipping it over on turns.

Aaron Z

 

[daugen]

If you want that tow behind blower to be easier to use with the RTV, you could mount it on the front of the RTV (with the wheels off of the ground). When I worked for a lawn care business, we had a golf cart with a front 2" receiver that we used with a similar blower mounted to the front hitch.
Made it a lot easier to use the blower without flipping it over on turns.

Aaron Z

thanks Aaron, not sure what you mean by flipping it over. My challenge is a long paved driveway where I have to blow all the leaves one way, thankfully into a woods on one side. The other side is lawn. So in order not to blow the leaves the wrong way on the first pass out I have to go through a paddock and "around the barn" to get to the end of the driveway, so I can come back in blowing leaves in the proper direction, in this case to the right of the mower/garden tractor pulling the blower. I usually use the Gravely to do this if only to give that machine some exercise. The simplest solution is a throttle cable extension of some sort, if I can reach around and throttle the blower down to idle; I don't think any of these blowers are anything other than direct drive, so no declutching. Yes I could just start the blower when I got to the end of the lane but then I'd have to wait for the engine to warm up a little. But when you mentioned "flipping over" did you mean "flipping around"? I'd love to figure out how to "flip over" one of these blowers, with a remote control like a front snowblower... or was that just one way in the front hitch receiver and the other way in the rear? Trying to picture this.

They make a huge oem blower for our Kubotas. At some point too much power is like having a 5000psi powerwasher. Yeah it's powerful but how much collateral damage does one do with it.

So my perfect blower would have variable power, and lots of it, would have directional air throw and be able to stop/throttle down easily. Yes, easier to see what's going on when the unit is up front. We've all been historically oriented to what's behind due to the three point hitches I think. Need to look forward. And with my bad neck I can't turn around easily so i'd love something up front. And the Gravely has plenty of frame strength for it, and a motor in the rear to offset the weight. Though not sure why I'd need to take the oem blower wheels off the ground; they came with the tow kit and work well.
My land is flat, very, very flat btw.
Hmmmm. We could design this on another thread.....

ok, enough of this on christmas morning, time to go down and see what Santa left.

 

[aczlan]

thanks Aaron, not sure what you mean by flipping it over. My challenge is a long paved driveway where I have to blow all the leaves one way, thankfully into a woods on one side. The other side is lawn. So in order not to blow the leaves the wrong way on the first pass out I have to go through a paddock and "around the barn" to get to the end of the driveway, so I can come back in blowing leaves in the proper direction, in this case to the right of the mower/garden tractor pulling the blower. I usually use the Gravely to do this if only to give that machine some exercise. The simplest solution is a throttle cable extension of some sort, if I can reach around and throttle the blower down to idle; I don't think any of these blowers are anything other than direct drive, so no declutching. Yes I could just start the blower when I got to the end of the lane but then I'd have to wait for the engine to warm up a little. But when you mentioned "flipping over" did you mean "flipping around"? I'd love to figure out how to "flip over" one of these blowers, with a remote control like a front snowblower... or was that just one way in the front hitch receiver and the other way in the rear? Trying to picture this.

I started a new thread: http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/projects/349832-mounting-push-leaf-blower-front.html#post4323708

Aaron Z

 

[daugen]

the last few weeks have been spent pulling dump trucks out of my field and I quickly learned that my Kubota was way too light to have any effect on a loaded dump truck.
When he got it stuck unloaded on another run, the final one..., then I could pull him out, low range, stomp on the diff lock and with a little spin we moved out slowly.
Yesterday my helper came and did a lot of the final hand work that I just can't do. A whole pile of sand and another of ABC is now mixed all through that area, and will need a final leveling later this week. And once it looks nice I'll dig it up again putting in buried water piping for gutter water off the barn. After all, if I'm going to be good I should be just like the Street Dept. pave it one week, cut it up the next week for some new pipe...

The floor of the barn is now being leveled and is ready for a pavers to go down, recycling some old ones I have. Been doing a lot of shovel and rake work and that I feel for sure at the end of the day. My helper put the garden tractors away under the new shed while we are doing the barn floor. I'm going to get that heavy water roller off there and put somewhere else; not going to do the edges of the concrete any good.

Getting down to the last details. Now for a few more days of dry weather so I can roll the whole area.