I am familiar with Messicks but don't know the other. We never mow with our tractor, as my wife doesn't think it is agile enough to mow where we mow. I would like to get a tow-behind of some kind, and wife mentioned a zero-turn, which she rejected a few years ago. What I would really like is a flail mower for the tractor, but I haven't found one here that will work on a tractor as small as mine.
I have seen them ocassionally on craigslist but Wisconsin has more mowers than Alaska, I bet. A guy I hire to mow my field for me had one on a bigger than compact tractor. But it kind of flattened the grass, not a really clean cut.
You know, there are times I really wonder about myself. I'm working on building a wheeled dolly to make moving the deck easier because I'm basically dragging several hundred pounds of dead weight across gravel, and I just happened on a video where the guy is installing a Kubota deck and the thing is rolling around with such ease that if he were on a hill, he'd lose it to gravity. Twelve years of struggle and I finally see how it should work. I followed the manual, but obviously need to inspect it further. I can be such a ditz sometimes...if mine works as the one in the video does. I suspect my setup is missing some front wheels or something, since they are not required for operation and there have been other differences between the manuals and my actual tractor. By coincidence, I got up this morning, did my usual scan of several regional Lawn & Garden sections on Craigslist, and came across a fresh local ad for a 5 foot finish mower. The ad says "Bought new. Only used one time. Bought a Zero Turn." I understand why. The Z.T. will do twice as good a job in way less than half the time as driving a tractor around. I think I've seen one manufacturer's PTO-driven flail mower for mowers as small as 18HP. I have no idea how it would perform at the lower end of that HP spec. I've looked at brush cutters, and my 32hp can only manage the smallest one they make. I recently came across a Craigslist ad for a pull-behind mower of some sort, and it had its own motor (not PTO-driven.) I just took a quick look and could not find the pic...maybe it sold. I have no idea how widely available (or functional) something like that might be.
I would kinda like to get a trail mower if I cannot get a flail mower, as it will offset and you can mow areas without driving over them. It seems that would be a great benefit in keeping the tractor paths and driveways clear along the edges. Money is also an issue in all decisions....
Alaska is a very big state, but has fewer people than Milwaukee and a good part of them are in Anchorage. there are small holding along the "Railbelt" and large holdings in the Delta area, where wheat, barley and rye are grown, as well as a number of livestock farms. The Delta area is 400 miles or so from here, so it would be a long drive to even look at used stuff.
That 18HP 48" flail mower I linked to is offset: As you said, if money were no object, I'd have a zero turn and a big pole barn to house my stuff...then I'd pay someone to come drive it around!
That may work for me, but I suspect the shipping would be as much as the price of the mower despite the "Free Shipping" statement. When you go to pay for stuff there is alwasy a disclaimer that the free shipping only applies within the contiguous U.S. I will keep it in mind, though in case I can use my son's expediter.
Yup. I think we've talked about the relationship of the upsides to remote living and the incremental loss of amenities. I'm closer to the middle of that balance than you are. And Hawaii has its own cost/benefit thing going on. EverythingAttachments tells me that they have shipped to Alaska (and to Hawaii), and offer "free freight" within 1,000 miles of their factory in North Carolina. That covers the entire east coast and as far west as eastern Oklahoma. All others pay shipping.
I have some sheep you can borrow. My brother lives in New Hampshire. There is a company there called 'Rent a Sheep' They come and stake sheep on your property, periodically move them and they mow as they go. In Vermont where my daughter lives they do the same with goats to take care of noxious weeds, like poison ivy, in a green way. I guess they like poison ivy, but in my experience, either species eats what they want. This spring the grass came in beautifully and my sheep slept in, waiting for my good hay. It took a week to FORCE them to go out and eat the new green grass in the morning.
I've though of getting goats for that very reason. I'd like a hiking trail around my property, and thought I could rope off sections of it at a time and let the goats do their thing, then move them to the next section. The problem with goats is they seek the highest thing around to perch on, even if that is the hood/roof of your car. This is not good...they don't trim their nails.
Cute as Nigerian mini goats are, I decided not to get something that would jump on my car. And my sheep don't listen to me. Well, one of them does.
We were talking about Facebook in another thread, and I think that I mentioned Facebook groups, which are for just about anything a person is interested in and wants to chat with like-minded people. My son is going to drive my daughters 1971 Dodge Travco motor home out here from north Idaho sometime this summer, and he has been doing mechanic work to get it ready for the long trip, so he joined a Travco Facebook group to get more input from other people who have one. I was thinking that you might be interested, @John Brunner, in some of the Kubota B tractor groups once you have a facebook page set up. Here is a sample of what is available, and I am sure you can find even more.
Thanks, Yvonne. I appreciate it. I often troll some of the general tractor forums (TractorByNet) and a Kubota-specific one (OrangeTractorTalks), but have not joined. Heck, even the John Deer guys (GreenTractorTalk) have some good ideas on stuff. I usually find myself on these forums via a web search trying to find a solution to a problem or researching an attachment or something like that. There are others I have not been on, like TractorForum.com, TractorPoint.com, MyTractorForum.com, NetTractorTalk.com A couple of these focus on sub-compact tractors, while the others are broader than that. Judging by web search results, the first 3 I mentioned must have the highest activity.
Goats are good at clearing brush, but they DO escape from many enclosures. I got the system down when we had them and managed to clear a good bit of land with them. I never let them run loose, but did keep them secure behind fences. That was when I was using that tractor-mounted fencepost puller. Supposedly, you can follow them with pigs to dig out the roots and stumps, but I never got that system to work, even when I baited the stumps with corn. Other use it though, so you might think about it. Then you can take the pigs to the butcher in the fall...or keep them around to dig stumps.