You can tell a lot about people by the stuff they leave around.
After a brief fantasy of considering Brego fit for plow work, I decided to get a tractor. My neighbor has a New Holland and I am going to get one similar to his so I can mooch off his implements. Ahhh, sweet mooching...
Also, we got the first of our seeds in the mail today from a little place over in Vermont. The greenhouse has been selected and ordered. We're going for a cheapo model ($500) that will probably only last a few seasons but we will now much more about what we need and we can upgrade. We are getting the 12' x 20' model. And I can do the grading for the greenhouse with my new tractor!!!
Anyway, I've been getting some really good advice on gardening from some special readers, you know who you are, and I have been investigating as much of the NH Coop Extension as I can stand. Everything is coming together!
(Nerd alert: Yes, that's my MacBook Pro. And yes, that's some java code. And yes, that is LOTR playing on my comp while I code while I surf BackYardChickens.com. I am person of uncompromising depth.)
5 comments:
We're window shopping (chain link fence shopping?) for tractors right now. I am convinced that prices will be better this year than any time in the past or the future and I want my damned loader. It is hard work and, more importantly, very time consuming to turn composed manure by hand. John Deere? Kubota? New Holland? I am leaning Kubota right now...are you seeing anything to push you one way or the other? (Other than your neighbor's implements...)
sumsta: a gangsta fond of adding
Penguin,
I originally wanted a John Deere, then I talked to a guy that had one. He ripped the three point hitch off of it by hand. :( Something about cast metal.
Kubota and New Holland are the same, in both awesomeness and value. They are all hydrostatic but something about the John Deeres bugs me. My other neighbor has a John Deere and every time he takes his foot off the pedal, the engine revs down. The New Hollands and Kubotas are nice and even, good for PTO implements.
The other thing for New Holland was the turning radius. I have a very small garden, I need something I can turn around in place. I can do that with my neighbor's New Holland. He said the turning radius was the best in the compact tractors.
The prices are good and we're getting 0% for 48 months, so I am only going to put half down and invest my cash in other areas, like tree clearing and greenhouses and barn roofs.
If my neighbor had a Kubota, I would buy one in a second. If all my neighbors had John Deeres I would buy a New Holland (turning radius).
But they all get the jobs done. What I did find is that it was cheaper to buy new than used. Tough economy but good for tractor buyers.
Hmm, I'll be really interested in your tractor satisfaction over the years! In my dream-homestead, I will have one of those indestructible 60 year old John Deeres, and I'll know how to fix it myself. (Kinda like having a Karmann Ghia, except diesel and much slower.)
A "starter" greenhouse sounds like a great idea. You'll know what you love and hate by the time it wears out.
Nerd question: Do you really use Firefox? Three years ago when I got my MBP, FF was really buggy but I hate Safari, so I started using Camino. Not as many add-ons, but I'm used to it. How's FF these days?
Funder,
I am getting the impression, from talking to a few people, that John Deere is coasting a bit on its reputation. Not quite the quality it used to be. Almost all conversations go like this:
Me: "I am thinking of getting a John Deere"
Them: "John Deers is a good tractor"
Me: "Cool"
Them: "Well, I've had some problems... Have you looked at XXX brand?"
No one will come out and say John Deere is crap, that's like pissing on the flag. But they always try to talk you out of it.
My former BO lives on a very large farm, with the BIG tractors. Her Dad farmed it for, oh, 50 years with nothing but John Deeres. As she has taken over the farm, she has slowly phased in Kubotas and is much happier. Fewer problems, more horsepower. The guy on my street with a John Deere was doing something, his tractor went into the shop. He borrowed my neighbors New Holland and when he returned it, he said he was buying one in the summer. His John Deere was the same size but felt underpowered.
So I don't know. I'm getting a pretty sweet deal on the New Holland, but I certainly know and respect the old John Deeres. They were awesome!
As for nerd stuff:
At home, I primarily use FF. I don't like the way it handles PDFs, even with the Quartz Plugin, so I use Safari for that. Safari is ok, but not as full featured as FF. I do a lot of development with FF. At work, I have a WinXP box and I use FF, IE and Chrome. I only use IE because we have to support it, it is by far the most clunky and buggy. I use FF for primary development. I use Chrome for my personal browsing. I like it a lot, but I miss the plugins of FF.
So give FF another try. FF 3 is MUCH better than FF 2.
Just want to pipe in on FF -- yes 3 is way better than 2. Safari pisses me right off if I happen to using my OSX partition (rare) and so does Chrome, though I think it has potential.
Thanks for confirming my Kubota instincts. I trust that you have done WAY more research than I.
procyman: like the boogeyman for 40-year-old men
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