Since the weather this weekend was warmer than its likely to be in the next few months, I took the opportunity to cut some trails in our woods for walking and eventually to ride the horses on. I was quite successful on Saturday and in only a couple hours had completed what I thought would take me a few weekends. I attached my 5 foot rotary cutter (aka Bush Hog) to my John Deere 3120 compact tractor and just started backing through the woods where I wanted to path to be. I tried to avoid any large trees and in the few places I ran into one that couldn’t be avoided, I used my chain saw to cut it down. Very rewarding work.
With my confidence high (you can just feel it coming, can’t you) I set on on Sunday to create the second part of the planned trail system. I started out well enough, having to only stop once to cut up a long ago fallen tree to move it out of the way. Quickly I realized that I couldn’t exactly see where I wanted the trail to come out so that it would connect with the trail I started the day before, so I went out of the woods and started down the other side. About this time it started to rain, so I figured I could get about another 20 minutes or so in before it got too muddy to work. I backed down the other side of the trail and made it about 200 feet in when I ran into a clump of trees that I knew I could mow so I figured that was the time to stop.
As I rolled back up the hill I suddenly slid sideways and got the tractor stuck between two trees. In the effort to get it out, I ended up cracking the front headlight assembly (it still works), the grill and some other front end plastic bits. I ended up having to drop the cutter off the back in order to get it unstuck (it’s still int he woods). So now the question is: do I repair the stuff I broke? It largely appears to be cosmetic, so the tractor will run fine without fixing it. I know its not a car, but at the same time it feels like I am mistreating it if I don’t fix the broken parts. What do you all think? Fix it or leave it with that “used” look?
Crashed up my tractor
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2 responses to “Crashed up my tractor”
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A banged up tractor will give you the farm equivalent of “street-cred” A shiny new tractor just pegs you as a poseur, or worse, a Yankee. As a matter of fact, you ought to take a hammer to the fenders, and let it run rich so it’s good and smoky. But that’s just the opinion of someone who doesn’t know the difference between straw and hay.
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Fix it. The new lights are only $60. I know because I did the same. If you don’t ,you’ll continue beating it up, thus taking less care of it. Keep it like new and you’ll always be proud of it.
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