07/13/2008
Farm Chores

Been quite busy here of late. We have had a handful of large tasks building up, including spreading a several-ton pile of gravel, cleaning out the goat shed, and putting up round bales of hay for next winter. Our tractor is an old and small, but cheap and useful, Yanmar 1300D 16HP 4WD. It has served us well for mowing, post-hole digging, and lime spreading, but there have been times when it's power was somewhat lacking, and it does not seem worth it to get a front end loader put on it. We briefly looked at buying a new, somewhat bigger compact tractor with a front end loader, but the price tag scared us off -- it is around $15K-$16K for either a new 24HP HP Mahindra 2415 HST with ML105 Loader, or a new Kubota 26HP 2630HSD with a LA403 Front Loader.

Fortunately, we were able to borrow a tractor from our neighbor Stan -- a 30HP Kubota 7800 HSD with a Woods 1008 Loader, pictured here.

[Just a quick note on tractor specs: the engine horsepower is only vaguely related to the HP available at the rear PTO, the lift capacity at the rear 3-point hitch, or the lift of the front end loader. All three of these tractors/loaders have pretty similar specs in these categories.]

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