Our Unconventional Farm Equipment. Tractors and Homemade Farm Gadgets
Update 2012 Ed's New Tractor
With age comes wisdom! The campground construction needed some heavier equipment so we purchased a new Massey Ferguson compact tractor with a front end loader.
Tractors
Toy Tractors and Workhorses...
In the beginning, Garden Tractors did everything we needed. The one in the photo above is a Simplicity 2110 built in the 1960's and it's still running strong. My wife calls this one my little Toy Tractor. That's a 4 ft. sickle mower attached to it which I use to mow the roadside ditches. It just creeps along in low gear and does a great job of mowing. It sure beats weed eating.
We also have a larger Simplicity 7116 Garden Tractor with a 16 HP engine and dual speed range. It's really the workhorse of all our farm equipment, and is used for everything from tilling new planting beds to pulling a small trailer up the mountain to collect firewood. It's great to be able to go into the woods without having to cut a road.
I'm really not that partial to old Simplicitys. The small one was given to me, and I found the larger one on eBay at a decent price. They're very rugged for the size, require little maintenance, and repair parts can still be found.
Most old Garden Tractors from that era were solidly built as scaled down versions of larger tractors. There are very few, if any, built that way today.
If you have visited our page on composting , you know our main ingredient is grass clippings. We use a large grass catcher from Woodland Power Products pulled by a 25 HP Sears Mower.
Our farm equipment also includes an 18 HP John Deere 295 Garden Tractor with a hydrostatic transmission which we use to pull trailers. As a future project, I am planning to built a small front end loader for it.
Trailers
Move 'em up, head 'em out...
We use several trailers on the farm. Two of them are just regular 8 ft.
highway trailers. One we purchased from Lowe's and the other we traded
some work for. We also have a small utility dump trailer which I built
from an old C-band satellite antenna mount. I bought an axle and wheel
hubs from
Northern Tools
, fabricated the frame, put a wooden bed on it and it became a real nice
little trailer. As with all of the farm equipment I modify here to be
pulled by the Garden tractors, I used a 1-7/8" trailer coupler instead
of those silly little pins you find on most farm equipment this size.
All of the tractors have trailer balls on them. You wouldn't believe
what a difference this one little modification makes.
Chippers
Mulch has become a very important commodity on our farm. It not only helps to control weeds, it helps retain moisture and provides nutrients to the soil as it decomposes. We heavily mulch all of our planting beds and berry patches. We get a lot of mulch from a local tree trimming company but also make a lot by chipping downed trees and shredding leaves.
We have a Bearcat 70080 chipper/shredder which we use for leaves and smaller limbs. I mounted it on a oak trailer frame with a hitch so it can be towed around the farm with the garden tractors. This is a great little piece of farm equipment. We have used it for about seven years during which I have changed the belts once and have sharpened the blades several times. It just does a good job with very little maintenance.
Yes Dear, we're cleaning the woods...
I used to kid my wife when we first moved here because she was forever cleaning out the woods surrounding our cleared property. Well, when we started "cleaning the woods" last year to start making campsites, she finally got her wish, my approval and help to do it. We still leave some wildlife trees (downed or standing rotted trees for homes for woodpeckers and owls) but the branches, wire vines, and poison ivy are now removed. We trim our healthy trees, remove some to make room for others, and generally, it has a woodland park look and feel to it.
Last year, when we started clearing for the campground, we realized we needed a larger chipper. Great! More farm equipment. The trails through the campground were rocky and uneven so we decided to cover them with mulch. This not only provides a safer walk for our guests but also helps control erosion and protects root systems. We needed a chipper which could not only handle larger limbs but would blow the chips into a trailer so we could spread them without handling them twice. We chose a 19hp chipper from DR Power Equipment . It's perfect for what we do. We set it up, back a trailer up to it and chip away! Anything too big for this guy is "firewood". Excellent small farm equipment.
Other Farm Equipment
Our driveway into the farm is a gravel road about a quarter of a mile long. The gravel gets pushed out of the curves and ruts wash into the road in several places. I had maintained it as best I could with a blade on our garden tractor but it seemed to always need maintenance somewhere. Two years ago I saw an ad in a magazine for the "Power Grader" from DR Power Equipment. The ad made some pretty bold claims about restoring gravel roads and, as with most of their equipment, it had a six month return policy for a full refund. Not having anything to lose, I ordered one.
Goodness Gracious, take that packing to the Compass Garden!
When it arrived, I unpacked it, read the instructions, assembled it in about 30 minutes, hooked it up and starting grading. I remember one of the first items in the instructions was how to unpack the equipment so as to save the shipping box and pallet in case you wanted to return it. I made about two round trips on our drive with this thing, loaded the box and pallet on a trailer and hauled them to the Compass Garden for weed control. This piece of farm equipment isn't going back!
It still amazes me when I use it. Instead of spending a couple of days with a blade, I just pull the "Power Grader" back and forth on the drive for an hour or so . Nothing could be simpler!
As I said on Our Farm Page, this place is very rocky. The road bed still has some pretty big rocks just below the surface. The ripper teeth on the "Power Grader" will generally catch these rocks, pull them out and grade over the holes. I'm still amazed at how handy this one piece of farm equipment has become around here.
Other useful tools and tip's from Ed's world...
Farm Equipment, handy hand tools...
If you use pruning loppers at all, you should consider DR's "Telescopic Rachet Anvil Lopper". That's a long name for such a simple tool. The handles on this tool extend with the push of a button and it ratchets which allows you to cut larger branches with less power. It is by far the best set of loppers I have ever used. Check them out. Don't let the low price fool you. They are the real deal!
We've tried several brands of loppers on this farm, good medium-grade brands, like Craftsman and Fiskars. These loppers from DR are the Cadillac of pruning loppers. You can cut a large 2" limb or sapling in a skinny minute.
Here is another little jewel I've found. I buy lawn mower blades from Agri Supply company at about one third the price of the blades at Sears. They have blades and other parts for a variety of makes and models.
Warning ... Garden Tractor Addiction link...
This place at Simple Tractors is a neat place to visit if you are interested in old Garden Tractors and small Farm Equipment. But be forewarned, they can become addictive!
Update--2010
Well, my toy tractor finally started having problems. I'd a lot of trouble keeping the engine running. I traced the trouble to the ignition system which was the older points and condenser type. I replaced them with a solid state system but the timing was off and I couldn't adjust it. I researched the problem and found that evidently the flywheel magnets needed to be re-polarized to work with a solid state system. I was really lost until I contacted Briggs and Stratton about the problem. Believe it or not, they re-polarized the flywheel for free. All it cost me was the shipping cost to get it to them. They even paid the return shipping cost.
I haven't finished this project yet! Building a campground has consumed most of my time.
Is there an electric tractor in my future?
For several years now I've been toying with the idea of converting our garden tractors to electric power. The idea really seemed logical when gas prices hit $4.00 a gallon year before last.
I started researching this idea and looking for parts to convert one tractor as a trial. I found an old used 36 Volt DC Motor in a junk pile at my father-in-laws shop. That set the system voltage I plan to use. I bought a 36 Volt Controller on eBay and three 12 Volt Deep Cycle Marine batteries at Wal-Mart.
The old Simplicity I mentioned above seems like a great candidate for conversion. It has a drive shaft from the engine to a transfer case. I could replace the existing engine with the DC motor. I'll just need a coupling from the motor to the drive shaft. There is room above the motor the three batteries wired in series to produce 36 volts and the controller will mount on the firewall. I still have to acquire a speed control rheostat and a battery charger.
This is a long term project but I'll post progress here. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions, please send them to me through our contact page. Any and all help is appreciated!