The old saying goes: "The farm boy might leave the farm, but the farm never leaves the boy. I left the farm in September, 1956. I'm still a farm boy. I grew up on a John Deer two banger, which is likely why I have hearing aids today. The irrigation pipes didn't come until after my farm time. I remember Dad "changing the water" early in the morning and late at night. Dad was one of the first to get a hay bailer when they became available after the war. And yes, they fit well on flat bottom trucks. When I see what's left of an old two banger in a farmer's back yard, I have to stop and look. If I see the farmer, I ask to visit it.
I understand about trying to pull stumps with these things...they are not construction equipment. There are horror stories on the web about backhoes with busted hydraulic pistons because people will get the bucket under a thick deep root and think they're just gonna yank it out. Regarding the landscape rake...I got it primarily to pull rocks from my 2,300 ft² garden and from the area behind my garage I just cleared out. I'm gonna gravel over half of that area as a place to store my attachments, and the rest is gonna be lawn. I want to remove the rocks from the lawn part. I know they make various quality rakes...some are meant to be "just rakes," while others are heavy duty enough to yank rocks. I think mine can yank rocks as-is, out-of-the-box. Why would you want to remove times, except to let smaller rocks filter through? I agree about the minimal utility of backhoes. I picked it up when I first bought my tractor because I could finance it at 0%. It's had occasional use in digging out stumps, but I've not dug any trenches or put in a root cellar yet. You know, I've looked at the Quick-Hitch stuff, but since I've purchased most of my stuff used off of Craigslist, I don't know if any of it is compatible. The only thing I really struggle with is that box blade. Reviews and advice articles said to get one with clevis pins rather than the attached hitch pins, and they were right. I really struggle to attach that thing because the width is at the outer reach of my lift-arms, and there's no way to get perfectly perpendicular to it when backing up. I keep my digger bar nearby so I can nudge the box blade around to get the arms to slide on it. Removing it is equally stressful. I still troll Craigslist, and if I find one with a better attachment system, I might pick it up, knowing that these things move so quickly I'll have no problem getting rid of the one I've got. But the reality is that I'm not using it every day to earn a living, so just living with it for occasional use is not gonna kill me. Everything else except my rototiller is light enough I can pretty much muscle it into position. Here is something I've had my eye on that would cause me to get a Quick Hitch: It's a portable tool box/work bench/garden tool rack. You drive to your destination, lower the hitch, drive out from under it, and have a workshop right in the field. I just don't have any place to store it. If I ever build a pole barn (or similar structure) to store my tractor, this is on my list of toys to get. They have a model that's painted orange with the Kubota lettering on it for another $600, but I've always felt that you should pay me to advertise your products, not the other way 'round. So I'd stay with basic black.
I spent the early part of my childhood in Indiana (Crawfordsville), and while we were not in a farming area, my backyard was the 4H fairgrounds. I would walk through it to get to school. It was small, and during the off season they would park ag equipment there for the kids to climb up and play around...likely trying to cultivate future farmers. Even at that level it gets in your blood. Or perhaps childhood sets our expectation for how we are supposed to live (I wonder if lifelong apartment dwellers see it this way?) That's why when I got the chance to remote work, I found this place away from suburbia. I know you've mentioned it, but I don't recall what part of the country you grew up in, James.
For around the ranch house and garden, my favorite was the Ford 8N. I grew up with a John Deere MT which was a 2 cylinder with a hand crank start. We called them Johnny poppers. We used it for doing the small pasture, mainly with a spring tooth harrow, and our big International for the larger hay field. @Cody Fousnaugh Farmall was made by IH and was their answer to Ford's tractors like the 8N.
If I had any prior experience with tractors, I might have ended up with a used Ford. That's what I started looking at when I realized I would have no idea how to even hook up an attachment. There are always some for sale around here, and they're easy to work on (I recently replaced the fuel stop solenoid on my Kubota and it was like working on a modern car.) But 4wd and a front end loader are awfully nice things to have.
1949 John Deere MT I imagine that anyone who go out from behind a team of horses and sat on one of these things experienced "modern miracles."
I spent many an hour on our old MT and while the tricycle front wheels are designed for row cropping, they did a good job for pasture work. They were great for pulling a leveling drag, a small disc or spring tooth harrow, a seed planter, pulling a hay wagon, and were nice for running a sickle bar. They worked with a single turning share, but a tandem was too much in clay soil.
A pre-war two banger. Ours could be hand cranked. The steering wheel could be used to turn the flywheel on the left side. The two gas-kerosene were Model A and Model B. About 1953 Dad bought a Model 70 Diesel, still a two banger. Unlike the other two, it had power steering.
There was a thread about folks who knew how to drive a manual transmission, and a number of tractor stories arose there.
I think you would find that a quick hitch makes hooking up the box blade easier. The reason I remove the tines is to keep the rake from clogging with debris. If I remove the tines and go slowly, the debris sifts through and the rocks are caught. You can also go a bit deeper with fewer tines. You can then put the tines back on and catch the smaller rocks and debris if you wish. There are also rock pickers that attach to the front bucket that work, too, but getting equipment here is very difficult and expensive. I just found out today that one of my sons has a connection with an expediter in Seattle who ships for him, so I might be able to get some of the stuff I covet that way. There is very little used stuff available up here.
How I ended up with a tractor ... When my parents moved here, my father bought a big tractor. I don't know what he was thinking. It had a front end loader, which was useless because the ground is so rocky here. It got in the way. Many damaged trees prove this. Mainly used to carry hand tools. I think it was this one: It had a large rotary mower, small rear mount reversible bucket scoop, and a pole to move round hay bales (why?). Then my dad got sick. The tractor deteriorated from just sitting. Fluids leaked, battery died, too big for me to handle anyway. Two years after my father died we finally got around to getting rid of it. I didn't want to go through the hassle of trying to sell it myself, so I traded it and the mower for a new Ford/New Holland TC30 compact, with a smaller mower, box blade and post hole digger. It was 2008 and the bottom fell out of the tractor market very soon afterward. The TC30 has been useful for odd ball things. Like towing the utility vehicle when it quit running or got stuck. I've dug a few post holes, and used the box blade a lot to smooth out things, move winter bedding from the goat barn and spread it out. I wish the mower was a little bigger, but maybe the tractor wouldn't handle a bigger one. It's what the dealer recommended. Last fall I put a heavier duty tail wheel on, and the mower is working well now. Fingers crossed. Have mowed along the roads and on top of the dam. It will stay with the property when I sell it. I've posted a lot of this already in the "Trees" diary thread. Sorry.
Thanks for the advice on the quick hitch. I would have though that a heavy attachment with all the stress of a box blade would be the last think I could use a quick hitch on. Obviously, I don't know about these things. So what are these rock pickers you speak of? It was my search for something to get rid of the rocks that led me to the landscape rake (and my Craigslist search for the landscape rake that caused to to learn about box blades.) As I recall, there may have been something like sifters...I'm not real certain. I'm fortunate that I live in an area with lots of small farms. If I want to drive a couple of hours, I could expand my search into even more agricultural regions. But these days stuff like this seems to get sold almost overnight. I got the box blade because I was right on it immediately after it was listed, and even at that, there was a guy in front of me who got sick and canceled his appointment to see it.
Thanks for the refresh here, and for not directing us all over the place to cobble the story together ourselves. I do the same thing, with the obligatory [albeit not-required] apology...but then I do it again. I recall your doing that wheel. I'm happy it's worked out OK. Your TC30 is only 2HP lower than my B3200. The greatest limitation on these compact tractors seems to be the size (mass) of those larger rear attachments, like mowers and bush hogs. I don't think our tractors are heavy enough for something that sits out that far and has a lot of mass and generates that kind of centrifugal force. My manual says that the largest rear mower I can attach cuts 6 feet. It limits a flail mower (I assume that's generic for Bush Hog™) to 48". And even then I bet there are front-mounted counterweight recommendations. (I skate by on that because I have a front-end loader.) Regarding that box blade...my manual says no wider than 54" span on the outer blades (so that's probably 60" total) with a weight limit of 500#. I know this used one I bought made the suspension in my truck compress several inches, but I have no way to know how much it weighs. The 5' ones on Everything Attachments weigh 455# and the 6' ones weigh 490#, so I should be within the limits. Your manual should [maybe] have the specs. I got a 60" under-mount mower deck (driven by the mid-pto) that has 3 blades. It is a pain in the butt to install, because you have to drag it sideways under the mower from the opposite side, turning the steering wheel hard-left so you get enough room. It's like dragging a stubborn 300# dog on a leash that does not want to go to the vet. You can turn the scalp wheels sideways, but the thing really does not roll (and I don't have a concrete pad...this is on gravel.) I detest it. I delay installing it every summer because once it's on I leave it on all season (I try to do the other heavy spring work first.) My neighbors cut my grass once this year, and it needs cut again, but I've yet to install the thing. I've just bought some 2x8s and lag bolts, and have some large casters on hand to try to make a large moving dolly to set the thing on so I can roll it rather than drag it. The stupid thing is if I had known, I could have bought the 72" deck that you just drive over to install/remove. But since I mow near the house with this and not just out in the fields (I have no other mower) the sales guy recommended the smaller deck, with no discussion regarding mounting/dismounting. Or I could have got the rear-drive one you have.