kday64
Gold Member
Hi all,
I guess I am going to be just like most junior members and my first posting is going to be advice related.
I own about .75 acres in eastern CT. The terrain is largely flat with a great many Connecticut potatoes, bolders that come through the surface, that my current push mower can not go over without causing sever damage and fright. On three sides I am surrounded by woods with 80+ foot tall oak trees. Additionally, my drive way easily parks 7 F-150s and 3 mini coopers. The position of the drive is interesting because the road I live off of bends directly infront of my house so when it snows the plows put an unusually large amount of snow into my drive way.
I forgot to say that the dense brush at the woodline prevents me blowing all the leaves into the woods.
The current scenerio... I am now living 3 hours away from my wife because my job moved. Not a whole lot I can do to solve this problem based on the economy and the mortgage. So I live with friends and return home on most weekends to spend time with my wife.
In the past, the wife and I have dealed with lawn related problems together. She would rake the leaves onto tarps and I would hull them into the woods. I would waste a Saturday morning using a pushmower to trim down the yard. Most importantly we spend hours together digging out of snow drifts.
Today, there is not enough time for us to see eachother let alone enough time for me to do all the yard work on the few weekends I am home. More importantly there is no way for my wife to do all the outside work by herself since she works and is going to school. She also has baby on the mind so... in the near future nether of us are going to have any free time.
Now I am looking for a way to significantly cut down the time we spend on yard work and I am looking to make my wife less dependent on my back (since my back is 3hours away).
Option #1: I look at the craftsman lawn mowers and I am like that would be awesome but they are not 4x4. What the **** good is a 4x2, with a snow thrower, in 24 inches of snow? I have $20 on useless. I can say that becasue Sears sells chains for their tires. Chains would work great if I had a gravel drice but I have an asphalt drive, I am willing to bet another $20 that the chains will destroy my drive. - With a price point of nearly $6000.00 including the mowing deck, leaf bagger and snow thrower. I consider this to be a bad idea.
Option #2: I suck it up and keep doing business the way that I have been doing it. I buy my wife a super snow thrower teach her how to use it. But she is a petite gal and I am pretty sure that she would struggle with manuevering the snow thrower, even self propelled version. If it is a pain for her to use she will just never deal with the snow and use my truck in 4x4 to ignore the problem, until I could deal with it. - With a price point of $800.00 this is a good option but I dont know if my wife would be able to use it.
Option #3: I call this Option #2 with some more lawn stuff. I buy a chipper shredder and deal with the leaves that way. I will end up baggin the leaves and taking them to the town dump. - With a price point of $1800.00 I dont really like the cost to time consumed ratio.
Option #4: I buy a 4x4 subcompact mower with mid mower, rear bagger and snow thrower. This will cut down on time effort and stress of worrying about my wife home alone in a blizzard. - The price is a kick to the family jewels.
Option #5: I pay to have my lawn problems solved. The lowest estimate I have recieved for leaf clean up is $400.00 + $40.00/cut. I equate that to nearly $1000.00 per year in lawn care services.
What ever happend to the days when neighborhood kids would go door to door asking for a few bucks to mow someones lawn and shovel the drive? Blasted computers and video games!!!
So I ask you all for some opinions. If I can justify the cost of option 4 to the wife what model subcompact tracor would you go with? Am I crasy for thinking that the quality of a 4x4 subcompact tractor far exceeds the quality of the other options? Will a modern tractor last me 30+ years like the Ford my family back in Michigan has?
Thanks for listening to my rant I look foward to seeing the follow on discussion.
~k_day64
I guess I am going to be just like most junior members and my first posting is going to be advice related.
I own about .75 acres in eastern CT. The terrain is largely flat with a great many Connecticut potatoes, bolders that come through the surface, that my current push mower can not go over without causing sever damage and fright. On three sides I am surrounded by woods with 80+ foot tall oak trees. Additionally, my drive way easily parks 7 F-150s and 3 mini coopers. The position of the drive is interesting because the road I live off of bends directly infront of my house so when it snows the plows put an unusually large amount of snow into my drive way.
I forgot to say that the dense brush at the woodline prevents me blowing all the leaves into the woods.
The current scenerio... I am now living 3 hours away from my wife because my job moved. Not a whole lot I can do to solve this problem based on the economy and the mortgage. So I live with friends and return home on most weekends to spend time with my wife.
In the past, the wife and I have dealed with lawn related problems together. She would rake the leaves onto tarps and I would hull them into the woods. I would waste a Saturday morning using a pushmower to trim down the yard. Most importantly we spend hours together digging out of snow drifts.
Today, there is not enough time for us to see eachother let alone enough time for me to do all the yard work on the few weekends I am home. More importantly there is no way for my wife to do all the outside work by herself since she works and is going to school. She also has baby on the mind so... in the near future nether of us are going to have any free time.
Now I am looking for a way to significantly cut down the time we spend on yard work and I am looking to make my wife less dependent on my back (since my back is 3hours away).
Option #1: I look at the craftsman lawn mowers and I am like that would be awesome but they are not 4x4. What the **** good is a 4x2, with a snow thrower, in 24 inches of snow? I have $20 on useless. I can say that becasue Sears sells chains for their tires. Chains would work great if I had a gravel drice but I have an asphalt drive, I am willing to bet another $20 that the chains will destroy my drive. - With a price point of nearly $6000.00 including the mowing deck, leaf bagger and snow thrower. I consider this to be a bad idea.
Option #2: I suck it up and keep doing business the way that I have been doing it. I buy my wife a super snow thrower teach her how to use it. But she is a petite gal and I am pretty sure that she would struggle with manuevering the snow thrower, even self propelled version. If it is a pain for her to use she will just never deal with the snow and use my truck in 4x4 to ignore the problem, until I could deal with it. - With a price point of $800.00 this is a good option but I dont know if my wife would be able to use it.
Option #3: I call this Option #2 with some more lawn stuff. I buy a chipper shredder and deal with the leaves that way. I will end up baggin the leaves and taking them to the town dump. - With a price point of $1800.00 I dont really like the cost to time consumed ratio.
Option #4: I buy a 4x4 subcompact mower with mid mower, rear bagger and snow thrower. This will cut down on time effort and stress of worrying about my wife home alone in a blizzard. - The price is a kick to the family jewels.
Option #5: I pay to have my lawn problems solved. The lowest estimate I have recieved for leaf clean up is $400.00 + $40.00/cut. I equate that to nearly $1000.00 per year in lawn care services.
What ever happend to the days when neighborhood kids would go door to door asking for a few bucks to mow someones lawn and shovel the drive? Blasted computers and video games!!!
So I ask you all for some opinions. If I can justify the cost of option 4 to the wife what model subcompact tracor would you go with? Am I crasy for thinking that the quality of a 4x4 subcompact tractor far exceeds the quality of the other options? Will a modern tractor last me 30+ years like the Ford my family back in Michigan has?
Thanks for listening to my rant I look foward to seeing the follow on discussion.
~k_day64
