Tractor Talk

This  unplanned photo was taken by the trail camera I've got set up on our septic drain field. The deer frequent it this time of year because they like the new green grass. If you guys are interested, I can take some close ups with my regular camera. 

My new tractor is the same size as my old one, but it has a bigger engine and front end loader. My old attachments will fit on it. I have a back blade, brush mower, and a roto tiller. When I don't have one of those on, I leave my draw bar with a set of log tongs on the back. I use the front end loader to plow snow, which works better for my purposes than a regular snowplow. Both my old and new tractors are classified as compact tractors, bigger than a lawn tractor and smaller than a traditional farm tractor. I understand they also make a sub-compact tractor now, but I'm not familiar with it. Kubota was a pioneer in the field of small 4WD tractors way back in the 1950s. Other companies make them now, and Kubota makes big ones too, but that's how they started out. Kubotas are orange, and John Deers are still green. As far as I know, all the other brands have their own color schemes as well.

The only place you are likely to see a side mounted PTO driving a belt nowadays is at an antique tractor show. Modern PTOs consist of a male spine gear that plugs into a female socket on the end of the attachment's drive shaft. Most of them are rear mounted, mine has an additional one underneath that points forward, but I have never used it.

I am the proud owner of 88 acres of prime swamp land, but most of it is uncultivated. I bought it in 1986 for hunting and firewood cutting, and we built our current home on it in 2000. I use my tractor to haul firewood, plow snow, rough mowing, and working up the 1/3 acre rye field by my deer blind. That's not my deer blind in the picture. I originally built it for camping, then I tried raising pheasants in it one year, and now it sits forlorn out beyond the drain field awaiting some other productive use.