You'll love it. My usual first tractor tips:
1. Anything the tractor touches, the tractor breaks. Keep away from the house and landscaping, and learn to watch the swing on the back with implements, and the swing on the front with the loader
2. Tractors are really tippy. They're stable, but tippy. What does this mean?
- You can tip it over on flat ground if you have the loader up in the air and turn sharp
- The front wheels provide no stability (they're on a pivot). The rear wheels are what keep you level. If you don't ballast properly you end up with a very light rear, and a light rear is a tippy tractor
- With a load out the front on the loader, and a weight on the back like a brush hog, you've got a big pendulum around the front and rear wheels. They bounce and pitch like nobodies business. If you don't like that, work to avoid so much weight out front and rear (take the loader off, use a flail mower instead of a brush hog)
- Speed makes them less stable. Things that are safe slow can get dangerous fast. Holes or bumps can tip you over, turning sharp is much more of a problem fast
3. Watch out for family members. Don't be like my father, who claimed it was my job to stay clear of the machinery he was using. If someone gets hurt you'll never forgive yourself. It doesn't hurt to go slow
4. Grease is important. Learn where every zerk is and hit all of them often. Too much is better than too little. Loader in particular, and also spindles on your mower and chipper. Doesn't matter what sort of grease really, matters that you use it
5. Stay on top of fluids. Hydro fluid, oil changes, filters.
6. Gunk in your tank makes a lot of work to strip and clean. Easier to make sure your fuel is clean and has an algaecide, and put a strainer in the neck of your filler (you can find links on here to cheap ones). Lots of threads of people saying "my tractor's not running well" and answers of "pull off the fuel tank and clean the whole fuel system". It's not much fun, prevention is better than cure
7. Chains are good. If you don't like scratched paint on your buckets, chain hooks are also good. I've never got some myself, but I want them.
8. Forks or a grapple. Carryall for the back. Replace the tool box with something bigger so you can carry more stuff.
9. You can get cheap ATV fertiliser spreaders (I think I recall you trying to grow grass on Florida sand), and cheap ATV sprayers. Easy to weld a 3pt frame for them, and easy to run a wire with a switch on the dash. If you're growing grass you'll want to fertilise and to spray.
10. Cheap to get a rattle can of Kubota orange. I sand and spray the bits that I scratch reasonably often. It'll get scratched, it doesn't have to rust.
