It was October 4th that my new tractor was delivered to the farm. This was a long time in coming! I have been learning about tractors and implements for a good ten years, unable to afford one, but looking to learn what was best for our little farmette. It is very difficult to judge which one has the right amount of horsepower, and the right lift in the loader. Just as one can always accept more power, one can also take what they have got compared to having to do the work all by hand. This applies especially to lifting power. But one can buy to little tractor quite easily, and not be able to really do all the work required on the farm. This is as much to do with acreage as it does horsepower of the tractor. If horsepower is how fast you hit the wall, and torque is how far you take the wall with you, then getting a large property sorted out in reasonable amount of time requires more horsepower. We are not a large property. Just seven and a half acres. So, I figured I did not need a lot of speed to get things done. I was able to settle in on a 24.5 horsepower tractor, keeping under emission standards requirements, and still having a lot more power to work than I could produce with my two hands and sore back.
I got the tractor and a tiller, and I then bought some things to help out with our farm, as per my plans going back for years. I got the three-point attachment that allows me to hook up to trailers to haul around, and also works with a set of bale spears to carry hay. I got pallet forks that also can be fitted with bales spears and lift large bales. I’ve picked up a box blade to level land and the driveways. The only thing I did not get that is on my list of really good things to have is a post hole digger. I mean, I could do with a backhoe, but to be fair, that is pretty damn pricey, so a post hole digger with a 6-inch auger would do miracles for fixing fences up here. I could always rent an excavator.
There have been various sundries as well, such as some tools, diesel cans, and a small toolbox. I put one of my radios in to allow others outside the tractor to talk to me.
Oh, dd I say outside? Yes, I got a tractor with a cab on it. It was going to be a cab or a backhoe, but it really came down to deciding which would be more useful. I watched a lot of YouTube for this, and while there are a lot of guys with the same kind of tractor with the backhoes on them, not all use them as much as they ever thought they would. Now the guys with the cabs? They use their cabs all the time. And none of them are not smiling about it. The cab offers protection from dust and debris, the heat and the cold, the rain and the snow, and bugs that don’t sting as well as bugs that do. I get into my tractor, and it always fells wonderful to have that bubble of protection around me, and with all that glass, a reason to slow down and care a little more about what is going on around me. The cab version offers much better exterior lighting, heat and A/C, and a radio, as well as protection for the two-way radio I use. It gives me places to put things without the paper items getting wet, or the tools falling overboard. It is a calculation that works properly for me, though I know many guys really need the digging that a backhoe can do. I could use it for some jobs here, but those will come to an end. And as I have learned with the tractor itself, so much work can get done so fast that a whole ten-year chores backlog can get cleared in a matter of a couple of weeks, easily! That would be especially embarrassing after spending eight-grand on a backhoe that attaches to a thiry-grand tractor.
As I have nearly done with the ten-year chores backlog, the tractor is settling into regular chores now. There are some that have not yet come, such as snow clearing, and garden tilling. There are others that it is mastering handily, such as animal feed handling, and driveway maintenance. I was able to put down a stone pad for a large shed and level it easily. I have also cleaned up over a foot of compacted hay and mess in a goat pen, where I never thought I could clear it by hand because wet hay is damn near impossible to move with a pitchfork. Yet, it is the basis of a compost pile that is now heating and making great progress for next year.
The Kioti 2610SE Cab is not a huge tractor. It does not have a lot of horsepower. But for someone who will be focused on a lot of yardwork with a little farming on the side, it is plenty of tractor. I could have gotten a bigger tractor with more lift, but not had the cab. I am sure that as winter comes along, I won’t miss the power as much as I would have missed the cab. While it is not a huge tractor that could nearly lift up that truck in the image above, You can see that the hoods are at nearly equal height, assuring that this is no lawnmower, either.