I didn't have the luxury of going with a bigger machine. Had just bought 40 acres and had all sorts of grandiose ideas: initially I thought that I didn't want a tractor- do things on a manual level- HA HA! I bought a used
B7800 Kubota and had it before even moving on to the property.
My saving grace was having read the advice to live on a piece of property through a full seasonal cycle in order to best understand it: at a minimum I'd say!
If you don't know whether you have swampy areas or not then you cannot possibly know how the land can be worked. I've lived here for a full 10 years now and I still haven't been able to get to some areas.
This picture was taken as I walked the property (late summer). The person there is/was my real estate agent and friend. Hard to come up with a bigger piece of equipment than a logging skidder (which made the tracks shown below). BIG machines can do BIG damage. Took me hours one afternoon to smoothen things out: done with my
B7800.
Years later (excavator used to deal with some stumps, but otherwise ALL
B7800 work):
I cannot possibly overstate how big the "unknowns" were. I would have been trying to bite off a lot of unknowns if I'd gone whole-hog on things. Following shows us (well, my wife shows up) salvaging firewood. Most everything was totally hidden. Not a clue what the terrain was. NOTE: even knowing the terrain doesn't guarantee that you can be safe- I got a 9k lb excavator stuck in an area that I KNEW- my
B7800 had been in that same area w/o getting stuck. Slow work, but quick can tend to produce shoddy results.
And today (taken further back and centering more to the right), some 8 years later (most done with the
B7800; now managed with the NX5510):
Just a sampling of the work that has been done. This has all been in my "spare" time. My main points are:
1) KNOW what you're facing before trying to tackle it- best to do a LOT of probing- my wife and I carved out a lot of exploratory paths using hand tools, much swinging machetes!
2) Develop a plan on what you're going to do and then PLAN MORE (took five years to do the fencing around our homestead area- roughly 6 acres worth);
3) Don't expect to do "it" "this year." <- Rush and you're going to end up doing a lot of second guessing (and if you break machinery over a poorly planned affair it'll only make you more distraught).
So for me, my tiny
B7800 was able to do an amazing amount of work: it kept me from being too hasty- slower allowed me time to think hard about what I was doing. I'd have to say that this tractor is as close to commercial-grade as you can get on a smaller tractor- nearly indestructible (can't say that about my NX5510). I rented excavators to remove big stuff: most of the time I would dig and bury stumps- I have pictures, but I don't want them made public lest they be used against me (I'm only partially kidding).
On a wider-open operation and an area with slower growing grass I wouldn't give a second thought about a telehandler (such as Xfaxman has). They're awesome machines (Merlo has machines which can readily replace tractors). But, as I've learned, there are things that a specialized piece of equipment is called for -such as a large excavator- and if one shells out a lot for one piece of equipment then that strains the purse for such rentals. My thought is that one buys equipment for the 80%, knowing that one is going to push that closer to 90% (on the edge of the seat operations!), and then rents for the other 80%. But note that one has to KNOW what that 80% is to start with!
Lastly, knowing your land and developing a firm plan will allow you to identify one-off projects in which the rental of task-specific machinery is better suited. It's easy to accumulate machinery, and the more of that you have the more time you're maintaining it.
