As I posted before, our tractors are all fairly old. It's okay, since tractors are designed to last longer than your average car or truck. But there comes a point as you are executing yet another repair when you stop and think: "Is this worth it?"
These are hard decisions. We are a small enough farm that we run with a razor thin cash flow. And we don't much like debt. So it's not easy to think about buying another tractor. If you buy something used, you may be buying someone else's trouble--more of the same constant repairing. Yet anything new is so expensive!
We ended up finding a barebones (meaning no onboard GPS, surround sound or auto-massage seat) two-wheel drive tractor available from a dealer. It should do nicely for our haying and cultivating needs. Larger than our smaller tractors and smaller than our largest tractor. This brings the fleet up to four, officially, but we may let the smallest tractor go back to live with its rightful owner, my father.
Barebones or not, we've never seen anything quite this shiny:
Although as soon as it was unloaded, it found the mud.
The Farmer and the Boy were quite happy. I snapped the photos and went about my business. Didn't see them again for hours...
Eventually, they got hungry.
Oh! Happy Day!! :) I totally understand. And the mud... ugh!! We have a sloppy mess but the snow is still melting away.
ReplyDeleteLOL, love your comments about the Farmer and the Boy. Sometimes it's hard to invest when you're always looking at the bottom line, whether it's a house or a farm or a small business. I hope this tractor turns out to be one of those "Old Reliable" farm vehicles.
ReplyDeleteThere's nothing like a shiny new engine. I admit to taking pictures of the engine of my car when it was brand new!
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