Deciding to Keep the Smaller Tractor

I did some serious thinking about that tractor that tried to turn over with me. It occurred to me that it is actually mine, as in no payments, and I have quite a few implements that will not fit on anything else that is bigger (bucket, plow, disc harrow, brush cutter –commonly known by the name brand Brush Hog, a lot like a tissue is called a Kleenex- and a sprayer). The sprayer is actually made for a 4-wheeler (which we do not have) but we attached it to a pallet and stick on the rear hay forks (another implement along with the bale spear for the front). We hook the sprayer to the battery and spray away the weeds and grass from the fence rows. Bigger tractors won’t clear the stumps or trees that are next to the fence in places. I suppose I’ll have to keep it and bale smaller bales. Hopefully we won’t have to deal with the knee deep mud again, but this is Wisconsin and mud is a part of the farm, especially in the rainy season.  

                                      Lots of uses for my little tractor - guess I'll keep it after all.

I decided to make my garden bigger this year to accommodate planting potatoes since I used part of it for asparagus last year and you don’t plow that up if you want to keep it growing. I needed that disc. After several trips lengthwise, I went the short way (that was fun dodging trees at the ends of the rows!) several more times just to break it up and then this weekend (a week later) I used the tiller on it. I have a Craftsman rear-tined tiller that has worked without fail for more than ten years. I love it. It will, however, work you half to death if your garden is very large, like mine is. Most people use the implements I have for deer forage plots- nothing like attracting the deer so all you have to do is sit and wait during hunting season. I don’t do that, by the way; they go after our corn and soybeans planted either for cash crops or to feed the cows so I don’t need forage plots. I could get a garden type tiller made to fit that tractor, but once the plants are up, the tractor won’t be able to go down the rows anyway.

I do have future plans for this equipment, and that includes the eventual purchasing of a tiller for it and a planter. This is way off of course, but when we lived in Florida we had what is called a truck crop farming operation. That is when you grow an acre or so of different vegetables and sell them either at farmers markets or vegetable auctions (we sold to an auction when we were in Florida). Some of our bell peppers and butternut squash and yellow squash went to grocery stores all over the country. We sold zipper peas (a variety of field peas) locally by the bushel basket. My only problem with this plan of course is that all of our land is currently allocated either to pasture or feed crops/cash crops for the animals. Hmmm, I’m going to have some figuring to do!