Re: Bagging Mower For Fields (no manicured lawn) & Something Else for Everything Else
Thanks! I've pretty well decided to scrap the bagging for the fields and focus on wood chip mulch instead. Long-term plans at this point are to add some goats that will keep things somewhat down on the fields, and brush hog whatever they don't keep down. Think ~10 acres cleared hobby farm (chickens, goats, possibly add horses at some point) with 1 km driveway and large (have fenced about 90 x 250') home garden/orchard mulched in thick wood chips.
Long-term/regular tasks include:
1 - Clearing snow around home and buildings and 1 km long driveway. Typical snowfall is 4-8" at once, rarely 16-24" at once. Sometimes dealing with 2' of thawed and refrozen hard stuff when returning home in winter. Once had an avalanche off the bluff bury the lower portion of our driveway under as much as 8' of hard-packed (took a hired backhoe over 5 hrs to dig through it). Pretty sure we'll want a blower. Want hydraulic direct drive with pressure relief rather than shear pins as the driveway can be quite rocky (rocks fall from bank above as driveway is cut into side of rocky bluff).
2 - Making lots of wood chips. Hydraulic adjustable self-feed is a must. Auto adjusting feed would be even better. Must be able to chip up to 5", but larger opening desirable to accept gnarly pine branches, which will make up a large portion of the chipping work.
3 - Brush hogging fields (~7 acres), waterline path (2500'), and along 1km driveway. Mixed grass, rose bushes, small saplings. Initially, will be taking out larger trees (3-4" trembling aspen common), but afterwards should mow often enough to keep things smaller.
4 - Digging/maintaining ditches along 1 km driveway.
5 - Opening up/digging/spreading/grading rough sand/gravel along driveway from gravel pit along driveway
6 - Digging/removing rocks and stumps (occasional)
7 - Loading/unloading 14,000 lb flat deck trailer of pallets and other material. Moving heavy stuff around (fuel barrels, pallets of concrete, wood/logs, steel, hay, anything that needs to be moved).
Possible tasks (may or may not happen, or may just hire someone to do it):
8 - May want to do some haying, but not our own fields (goats will eat them), and most likely would hire a neighbor with haying equipment to do it.
9 - Dig 6-8' trenches around property for water lines
10 - Dig 2500' of 3' trench through very rocky soil from creek down to property to bury water line
11 - Dig foundations/basements/piles for possible new home and other outbuildings. 8' to be below frost line.
12 - Dig trenches for power/communication lines. likely 1000+' by the time all is said and done, but likely not all at once
13 - Clear/maintain fence/fire line around upper uncleared/sloped area of property (~ 12 acres) through thick brush trees (mostly trembling aspen, willow)
For tasks #1 & 3, driving backwards is not an option due to past neck injury. A Toolcat would probably work well for #1-3, but I get the impression it is not the right machine for digging in hard rocky ground. If I had them all (not likely to happen anytime soon...), my impression is I'd probably grab:
A - Toolcat for much of #1-3 (on good ground), & 8
B - CTL for parts of #1-3 (on rough ground and if I find it works better than Toolcat for snowblowing). For parts/all of 4-6, and all of #7. Likely use for most of #13. Would help with parts of 9-12; with appropriate attachments, could probably do all of this, though compact excavator would be preferable.
C - Compact Excavator for parts of #4, 5, & 13, all/most of 6, & 9-12
I want a fully enclosed cab with at least heat as I'd like to make it easy to live here as we get older and don't plan to change machines often--may well have whatever we buy now 30+ yrs from now.
If I understand right, a tractor with mid PTO should do #1-3 & 8 well. It could do some of #7. But I'm doubtful I'll be really happy with it for the digging work, and think the CTL will probably handle that and rough ground/slopes better. Thinking perhaps something like a Bobcat T650 with the wide track option and high flow auxiliary hydraulics.
Let me know if there's any other information that would help narrow down the best equipment for our needs/wants
