allenron
New member
We have been shopping for a tractor and using this site for a couple of months. It just seemed appropriate to register, share what we've found out, admit what we've been confused about, and (eventually) confess our decisions to the forum. There's a lot of experience here from which we should be able to make good use.
Why a tractor for us? We're still employed in high-tech in the northern California San Francisco Bay area, and I never imagined that I'd own a tractor. But we also own a small weekend cabin with 32 acres of rough forest and brush in the Sierra foothills of central California, outside Mariposa, west of Yosemite. The whole area has been hit fairly hard, as has the whole southern Sierra, by the drought and subsequent beetle infestation that affects sun-loving pine trees (ponderosa, sugar pine).
We have a lot of dead trees.
We also are planning some construction. So the motivation to get a tractor is twofold: forest maintenance and construction projects. We need to move large logs around, split and chip them, remove stumps, grind stumps, distribute the chips, remove brush, and make and maintain fire breaks. The construction comes in the near future, and there's a good bit of trenching and material handling involved in that. I was skeptical at first, but more and more it seemed like Bev had the right idea about getting a tool, however expensive, to help us with these tasks.
And here we are. We'll be posting further on some of the other TBN forums. Thanks! --Ron & Bev
Why a tractor for us? We're still employed in high-tech in the northern California San Francisco Bay area, and I never imagined that I'd own a tractor. But we also own a small weekend cabin with 32 acres of rough forest and brush in the Sierra foothills of central California, outside Mariposa, west of Yosemite. The whole area has been hit fairly hard, as has the whole southern Sierra, by the drought and subsequent beetle infestation that affects sun-loving pine trees (ponderosa, sugar pine).
We have a lot of dead trees.
We also are planning some construction. So the motivation to get a tractor is twofold: forest maintenance and construction projects. We need to move large logs around, split and chip them, remove stumps, grind stumps, distribute the chips, remove brush, and make and maintain fire breaks. The construction comes in the near future, and there's a good bit of trenching and material handling involved in that. I was skeptical at first, but more and more it seemed like Bev had the right idea about getting a tool, however expensive, to help us with these tasks.
And here we are. We'll be posting further on some of the other TBN forums. Thanks! --Ron & Bev
Just keep us informed as you go selecting it.
