After receiving quotes for a driveway, site excavation, trench digging, landscaping, and other various diggy work, we were surprised to see that prices were high for jobs that seemed like they could be easily accomplished with some heavy machinery. Sure, there are costs such as time, gas, and maintenance, but for the price of all those quoted services, it wouldn't actually cost that much more to buy a small tractor for ourselves - and instead of just giving that money away, we would have a vehicle of our own. We did some research and determined that a small tractor with a frontloader and backhoe would be able to get the jobs done (albeit more slowly than a larger tractor or contractor). After shopping around a bit we checked out the inventory down the street at Lakeland Equipment, and they had a lightly used John Deere compact tractor available with a frontloader, mower deck, and backhoe at a fantastic price. We took it for a test drive, slept on it, and decided - let's give it a shot!
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| John Deere compact tractor 2305 |
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| Breaking ground! |
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| Yes, they gave me a pink JD hat. |
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| Backhoe. |
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| Easily removing one of what will surely be many large rocks. |
So far, so excellent. We think this little machine is really going to come in handy. Besides, it comes with the land, right?
By the way, it runs on diesel - so we would really like to use biodiesel if possible (how cool would that be?). If anyone knows where we can get some, please comment. Google searches haven't turned up anything very promising.
Note: We decided not to include the tractor in the budget, as it is not specific to the house and will either be sold or will continue to be used after the house is built. We regard it as a separate investment.
