Homestead mailing list

["Lisa K.V. Perry" <lisakvperry AT gmail.com>]

On 9/15/06, NVW55V <r_s_banks AT yahoo.com> wrote:
> ONLY buy a walk-behind if you are already a practicing
> fitness freak and pain addict.


Hey!  I resemble that comment.

--- mark rousseau <markrousseau AT yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Not sure if this was mentioned but Could renting a
> > walk behind mower for a weekend work?
> >  This would let you know real fast if the walkbehind
> > solution would work.


Ideally, I'd love to share ownership with another family or three or four in
a good, used tractor.  We have friends that live in a small 'community' of
several families.  They co-own a tractor.  They take turn using it and share
in the expense and upkeep.   We've thought of this idea, there are probably
a dozen families within a 2 mi. radius, but they all own tractors.  In the
past, we hired out one of our neighbors to bush hog our fields at $30/hr.
The last time we hired him, his price jumped to $40/hr.  It took him 6 hours
and we began thinking that we needed to do something on our own at $240 a
pop.  We figured if we hired him more than 2x a year, we'd be making a dent
in the price of our own machine over time.  Perhaps that's still
inexpensive.  Even at $500/year for just bush hogging twice (ideally we'd do
it 4x per year--spring, early summer, late summer, fall) it would take
probably at least 7 years, but perhaps as many as 8 or 9 years to come close
to paying for a good, used tractor.

Lisa