Land needs a tractor

Okay, technically it doesn't "need" a tractor. But boy does it make everything easier if you have one. So we did some research, talked to friends who had property and tractors, and then bought one. The number one thing that folks warned us about was buying undersize. Most everyone wished they'd gone larger. So we figured out our minimum requirement and then upped it enough to cover just about anything we wanted to do, up to and including digging a shallow basement. The Kubota has so far dug footers, groomed roads, helped with logging, and done most of the minor excavation work around my Dad's new house. We have not found it to be undersized at all (yeah!) and we're extremely happy with the purchase.

Of course a tractor needs a tractor shed, so that was the first thing we built on the property. Given its size we needed to get a building permit and we found the town to be very easy to deal with. We'd heard horror stories about other town inspectors and associated regulations but we were lucky to have a reasonable inspector and a really helpful town clerk. Asking questions up front about what the codes required saved us a lot of aggravation (and them too I'd guess). The whole family got together to help and we had great fun playing with the tractor and building the barn. The picture to the right is a couple years after the build and you can see why we needed cover. This is early March and there is about 3 feet of snow on the ground.