Real farmers now?

As mentioned in earlier posts, we bought a tractor last month. Does that make us real farmers now? I would never have thought that owning a tractor would be what made us farmers but, somehow, having that thing in the garage does seem to make it more real.

It is not your usual Canadian tractor but is an Italian made walk-behind BCS tractor (the 853 model). We chose a walk-behind over a conventional tractor because of its lower cost and its great versatility. It is powerful enough to run any one of a considerable number of attachments which one can purchase. We have acquired four attachments for it that we think will be useful in our situation: a dozer blade (can be used with snow, gravel, soil, manure), a rotary plow (apparently better for the soil than a tiller and good for breaking old pasture), a flail mower (for mowing grass, weeds and small brush) and a wagon.

Given the weather, we have only used the dozer blade and the wagon thus far. We have been pleased how it works but, given the icy conditions, know that it will work even better when the ice chains that we have ordered arrive.

Tractor enthusiasts will need to wait until spring for an update on the working of the plow and flail mower.