I've replied to lots of people on this forum. Newbies I guess. I'm not a newbie as many of you know, and you'd figure I know enough to recommend things to myself. But it's still nice to chew over options.
We've been living in Rotorua for about 10 years. We have about an acre of our own property that I mow, and about 5km of roadside I mow (out and back), plus some community land. My B2601 has been perfect for this - tasks it does are:
Because we live on a lake in Rotorua, we have lake reserve between us and the lake itself. That means the public can walk through - it's not super frequent, but it means we can't leave the dogs outside unsupervised - our property isn't fenced because that would sort of destroy the point of living on a lake. In Wanaka we're looking at 7 hectares / 17 acres of land, it'd be genuinely ours and fenced, with nobody sticking their nose in our business (beyond the usual local bureaucrats). It's a reasonably sparse environment, the land is pretty bare, and while it grows grass, it's an arid area, so it's not thick and lush like the grass we get in the aptly named "Bay of Plenty" that we currently live in.
The property has a 4 bay pole shed, and a temporary house. We'll build a house over the next two years. It has a gravel driveway, about 150 metres/yards. Enough water to irrigate if I wanted to - 13,000L per day. So we could make the grass reasonably lush in summer, it'd still be sparse in winter, too cold to grow much.
So, my mind is racing. This whole exercise will be expensive, and it's initiated by my better half. So if the move necessitated some new machinery, she could hardly complain, right? (Actually, she doesn't complain when I buy machinery, but it's what I tell myself).
There are some options here:
We've been living in Rotorua for about 10 years. We have about an acre of our own property that I mow, and about 5km of roadside I mow (out and back), plus some community land. My B2601 has been perfect for this - tasks it does are:
- Mowing (probably 80% of my use). I mow my lawns, neighbours lawns, community land and roadside as noted. The MMM is convenient for this, easy to manoeuvre, and doesn't push the tractor around like a rear mower would. With a lot of roadside mowing I need something durable (the B has a more robust mower than the BX I had before), and width isn't critical because when mowing roadside you have to go up and back either way, there's only a few places that I need more than one pass
- Loader work in the gardens
- Running a chipper on the PTO
- Fertiliser spreading (cheap Chinesium electric spreader), spraying the lawn and pavers etc (cheap Chinesium boom sprayer with a hand wand as well)
- Pulling the boat in and out of the ramp (we live on a lake)
- With pallet forks on the front, moving the diesel tank into and out of the trailer for filling heating oil
Because we live on a lake in Rotorua, we have lake reserve between us and the lake itself. That means the public can walk through - it's not super frequent, but it means we can't leave the dogs outside unsupervised - our property isn't fenced because that would sort of destroy the point of living on a lake. In Wanaka we're looking at 7 hectares / 17 acres of land, it'd be genuinely ours and fenced, with nobody sticking their nose in our business (beyond the usual local bureaucrats). It's a reasonably sparse environment, the land is pretty bare, and while it grows grass, it's an arid area, so it's not thick and lush like the grass we get in the aptly named "Bay of Plenty" that we currently live in.
The property has a 4 bay pole shed, and a temporary house. We'll build a house over the next two years. It has a gravel driveway, about 150 metres/yards. Enough water to irrigate if I wanted to - 13,000L per day. So we could make the grass reasonably lush in summer, it'd still be sparse in winter, too cold to grow much.
So, my mind is racing. This whole exercise will be expensive, and it's initiated by my better half. So if the move necessitated some new machinery, she could hardly complain, right? (Actually, she doesn't complain when I buy machinery, but it's what I tell myself).
There are some options here:
- Stick with my B2601. It's actually big enough for anything I'd do on the new property. It might be a bit slower to do some things, but I'm unlikely to mow the whole thing, I'll probably let a neighbour graze it with sheep. A mob of sheep through once a month will keep it looking tidy, and I'll probably get a couple of lambs a year in return. Most other things, the B can do, the main new task will be maintaining the driveway
- While I like my B2601, it's actually a bit heavy for mowing on the home. I slowly build up ruts in the lawn. Mum recently bought a relatively inexpensive rider, and it's excellent. I could supplement with a rideon for the house block for not much money - circa NZ$5,000. Not a diesel, but I'd survive. The boat and the power tools need fuel supply anyway, so I have it around.
- I'll need to maintain the driveway. A back blade is easiest, it's not a big driveway. But a land plane might be better. They're not common in NZ, but there's a couple land pride models available.
- I'll likely have some trenching, and quite a bit of planting. The soil is a bit stony, so digging will be hard. I could put a backhoe on the B2601. Looks like that'd be about NZ$15,000, although nobody actually publishes prices online so I'd need to ask a dealer and price it up. I've never had need for a backhoe, but always kind of wanted one. The backhoe on a B2601 is limited, but it would sure beat a shovel.
- My trailer is a single axle tipper. It's great for loading the tractor. It sucks for tipping stuff off it. I could move to a tandem hydraulic tipper, that's about NZ$10,000. I think this would be a good upgrade, we'll be bringing in a lot of mulch and probably moving around dirt, a proper tipper would make that a lot easier. Not essential, but if I wait for a while before getting it, I'll be wishing I'd done it earlier, most of the work is up front.
- A backhoe on a B2601 kind of sucks. I can get a Takeuchi 1.6t mini-excavator with about 3,500 hours on it for around NZ$25,000. And then I'd still have the tractor to pull the trailer that I'm filling with the mini-ex. This setup would be massively better. For the small amount of digging I need to do. I could follow my own advice and rent one when I need one, but owning a digger would be cool.
- A bigger tractor. If I don't keep on top of the grass in summer I'll need to mow (although the better half thinks we could let a neighbour make hay....but I don't like grass that long). My brother in law has an old 3 spindle finish mower that would be ideal, but I'd need a bigger tractor to run it. He has a vintage Massey Ferguson diesel that he pulls it with, so I could get a second tractor. Or I could get a bigger tractor. In NZ we don't have the emissions that America has. Our models are an L3200 or L3800. D1503 or D1803, non turbo, no DPF or emissions controls. Or I could get a Grand-L, we get L3540, L4240, L5740. None of these are cheap unfortunately. Again no online pricing, but I'd be north of NZ$50,000 I think for any of them, the Grand-L quite a bit north.
